Beneath the Water

by Sarah Painter

  ‘And you’d sell a story, too. Bonus.’

  ‘Yes.’ Caitlin looked down.

  ‘And pictures, too?’ Stella suddenly realised who had been lurking out in the garden with a camera.

  Caitlin nodded. She glanced up and Stella saw the misery on her face. It was genuine and she felt more of the anger slip away. She looked into her friend’s eyes and a question formed in her mind, a question that hurt to articulate. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me the plan? Why lie?’

  ‘I wanted to,’ Caitlin said. ‘I swear. But Rob said you would never do it.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be flattering? That you thought I was too nice to spy for you or something?’ Stella was surprised at how harsh she sounded. The waves of emotion just kept on coming. She felt betrayed and that realisation was like a stone in her stomach.

  Caitlin straightened her shoulders. ‘We didn’t think you would take the risk.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t think there was a risk,’ Caitlin said quickly. ‘I don’t believe all the gossip.’

  ‘About Jamie?’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘You know. That he’s reckless. Some kind of mad scientist doing wacky experiments. And then there’s what they say about the house and its goings-on.’

  Stella closed her eyes.

  ‘I know it’s stupid, just a silly story, but Rob is a real local and I think he half believes in it. He thought that if we told you that we wanted you to spy from inside the cursed estate, you would run a mile.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I mean, it’s true. You are very cautious.’

  ‘No,’ Stella said. ‘You don’t get to make this about me.’

  The wind had gotten up and was rattling the window. In the sudden silence of the kitchen the noise seemed to swell. The light dimmed and Stella sat down at the table, suddenly exhausted.

  ‘Do you want some tea?’ Caitlin said. ‘Or something stronger?’

  Stella shook her head. ‘You should sit down too before you keel over.’

  Caitlin pulled out the other chair and sank onto it. One hand was on the bottom of her bump, rubbing as if there was a pain. Stella was determined not to ask her about it, determined not to feel sympathy.

  ‘Rob has always had it in for Jamie. Whenever he talked about home he made little comments about the family but I didn’t realise how serious he was until we moved here. He’s not alone, either,’ she said, looking at Stella. ‘You really can’t trust him.’

  ‘You’re not really in a position to throw stones,’ Stella said. ‘And you don’t know him.’

  ‘Rob says his dad was really bad.’

  ‘Jamie’s not his father,’ Stella said.

  ‘No, I know that. But—’

  ‘I’m not here to talk about Jamie,’ Stella said. ‘Although I do want Rob to answer some questions. About his parents’ accident.’

  ‘Rob’s parents?’

  ‘No. Jamie’s. They drowned in a boat accident ten years ago and Rob was on the lifeboat that went to the scene.’

  Caitlin’s eyes opened wide. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘He never told you?’

  ‘No,’ Caitlin said. ‘I can’t imagine that. I suppose if they had the call out but didn’t know whose boat it was, who was out there . . . That must have been a shock when they got there.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have gone out?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Caitlin said. ‘They all take the duty really seriously. Maybe he would have. Just, the way he talks about the Munro family—’ Caitlin broke off, as if frightened of what she was about to say.

  A horrible thought occurred. ‘Did Rob have something to do with Esmé getting sick?’

  ‘No!’ Caitlin said, too quickly.

  Stella sat back. ‘Oh my God. What did he do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Caitlin said. ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘You’re not sure, are you?’ Stella said.

  It hit her then just how much resentment and anger Rob was carrying.

  It didn’t make sense. Not after all this time. He had never really spoken about Arisaig when they had been at uni, not to Stella, anyway. And he’d certainly never revealed any blood vendettas. ‘What on earth happened with Rob and Jamie? Something when they were kids?’

  Caitlin took a deep breath. ‘He won’t talk about it.’

  ‘Never?’

  Caitlin pressed her lips together.

  ‘Not even when he was drunk?’

  ‘He said that Mr Munro was a bastard. Hit his wife, apparently.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard about that. Awful.’

  ‘And Rob really liked Jamie’s mum. People said she was stuck up, but Rob always said she was a nice woman. That she didn’t deserve to be married to an unfaithful bastard like James Munro.’

  ‘Who else would know about the accident? What about Rob’s mum? Where did you say she moved to?’

  Caitlin looked uncomfortable. ‘Lewis. To be near Rob’s gran. Gave us this cottage and bought a house in Stornoway. She might regret it now that this one is on the way’ – she patted her bump – ‘but we are very grateful for the place to live.’

  ‘Right.’ Stella stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘To Lewis? Now?’

  Stella didn’t know when she had got so impulsive. She just had the feeling that a face-to-face chat would be more productive than one over the phone.

  ‘I don’t think Rob would like that,’ Caitlin said. ‘It feels sneaky. Talking to his mum about him. And it’s a long way. Not a day trip.’

  ‘Fine,’ Stella said, pacing the floor. ‘We’ll phone, then. Do you use Skype? Then we could see her face, too.’

  Caitlin didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘You’re not going to let this go, are you?’

  Stella stopped pacing and looked at Caitlin. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  Caitlin stood up. ‘Rob is going to kill me. This is private. You mustn’t tell another soul.’

  Stella hesitated. ‘I might have to tell Jamie. If it involves his family.’

  Caitlin blew out a breath of air. ‘Fuck. Okay. But I’m only doing this because you are my friend. And I let you down and I want to make it up to you. I want you to know how sorry I am. If you hear this and you decide to tell him, then I won’t blame you, but I would prefer you kept it to yourself. Rob will be furious if he finds out I told you.’

  ‘I won’t tell him where I heard it.’

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘I didn’t know any of this when I invited you here or encouraged you to work at the estate. Rob only told me after Esmé got sick.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘That his mum had been on the receiving end of Mr Munro’s attentions. And that she hadn’t been willing.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Stella said.

  ‘I mean, maybe she said that when her husband found out so that he wouldn’t leave her or whatever, I don’t know. But when Rob was a teenager, his dad got drunk and told him that Mr Munro wasn’t just a bastard who was quick with his fists, but that he had assaulted Rob’s mother.’

  ‘Did they report it?’

  ‘No way,’ Caitlin said. ‘It was different, then. You kept quiet about that sort of thing. There would have been questions about why Rob’s mum had been alone with Mr Munro, and Mr Munro knew the local police and the paper. They wouldn’t have stood a chance. There were already rumours that they were having an affair.’

  ‘But still, they didn’t even try?’

  Caitlin looked out of the window. ‘You know the estate used to encompass the village. Back in the day. I mean, the village was even smaller then, and bits of land got sold off over the years. By the time Jamie’s parents owned the place, they still had most of this side, including this road.’

  ‘They owned all the houses along the road into the village?’

  ‘These three cottages and the detached place along the way.’

  Her words sunk in. ‘The Munros owned Rob’s parents’ house?’

  ‘Until Rob was sixteen or so, yes. They paid M
r Munro rent on it, until one day when they didn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Jamie’s dad gave Rob and his mum this house. Rob’s dad had left a couple of years before. After the incident.’

  ‘Why would Mr Munro do that?’ Stella said, the answer dawning upon her as she spoke. ‘To keep them quiet?’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘I think so. Or because he felt guilty.’

  Stella walked back down to the house, wondering how to deliver the information to Jamie. He was already reeling from the discovery that his ancestor had, most likely, been guilty of murder. Or, at the very least, manslaughter. Now she was the bearer of more bad news.

  The father, who he had always hated and feared, was as big a bastard as he had always thought.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Back at the house, Stella had gone through the post. There was an envelope with a local postmark that she gave to Jamie to open straight away. ‘It’s from the library in Mallaig,’ he said. ‘They’ve heard back from Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh. Apparently some of my grandfather’s heirlooms, including Lockhart’s medical patents, ended up there.’

  ‘We should go,’ Stella said, not really expecting Jamie to agree. To her amazement he had nodded. ‘I’ve been stuck here too long. A change of pace would be good.’

  The high-ceilinged entrance led into a grand room with white pillars and a high mezzanine which ran around the perimeter. A glass case with a grotesquely inflated skull reared up on Stella’s right. She looked away quickly but on the other side was a display of early dentistry equipment. There was a low hum of an air conditioner but Stella wasn’t sure if that noise was actually inside her head, her blood buzzing gently with a sudden rush of adrenaline and nausea. Up on the mezzanine were rows of shelves, stacked with glass specimen jars, and at the end, two skeletons with grotesquely malformed bones hung, like permanent Halloween decorations. Jamie was looking around with utter fascination and Stella couldn’t bear his avid expression. ‘I need to sit down,’ she said.

  A man she had not noticed was by her side. ‘Through here,’ he said, leading her quickly to the end of the room and through an unmarked door. This led to a vast dark space, with a heavily corniced and gilded ceiling and elaborately painted wood panelling. Banquet chairs were lined up against the wall and Stella sank into the nearest one, putting her head between her knees and taking deep breaths.

  ‘Is she all right?’ She heard Jamie’s voice from far away.

  ‘It affects some people like this,’ the man said. ‘It’s not uncommon.’

  Stella could feel the dizziness pass and she sat up cautiously. The man from the museum had a neat pink shirt with a cashmere vest over the top and a bow tie. In a line-up she would have picked him out as the museum curator in an instant. ‘Take as long as you need,’ he said, his voice kind.

  ‘Do you need a drink of water?’ Jamie knelt down by her chair and reached out a hand as if he were going to touch her face. Stella, aware of feeling sweaty, moved away. ‘I’m fine. You go and ask your questions.’

  He cupped her cheek and leaned closer, searching her face as if looking for secrets, clues. She relaxed into his touch and managed a smile. ‘I promise I’m fine,’ she said.

  ‘If you’re sure.’ Jamie straightened up. ‘Join us when you’re ready.’

  The room had busts of medical men dotted around the edge and a plaque with a Latin inscription fixed above the tall windows at one end. A sign on the back of the door explained that this was the room in which undergraduates had sat examinations, and Stella couldn’t imagine being able to perform in such an overwrought environment. When her hearing had returned to normal and she was no longer looking at the world from within a black tunnel, Stella stood up carefully and went to find Jamie and the curator.

  They were at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The steps were roped off, but the curator moved it aside for them to pass, clipping it back into place behind them. He was in full flow, telling Jamie about a recent discovery of an anatomist’s drawing which had been found in an attic in Kirkcaldy and bequeathed to the museum.

  She assumed that Jamie was too engrossed in the topic to notice her return, but he reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. Stella was glad of the reassurance when they reached the top of the stairs. In front stretched out rows of white shelves, almost to the ceiling, and each one was packed with jars of unmentionable and horrifying samples in shades of bone-white, yellow and grey. Nothing was gory in the usual sense; there was no bright-red blood or pink flesh. Instead the room was a study of how the human body reacted to being suspended in formaldehyde for years. Familiar flesh made alien.

  Stella read the label of the nearest jar: Tumour of the face, 1867. A bulbous shape, mottled grey and pale yellow, hung in the liquid. The hairs on the back of Stella’s neck lifted. Some primeval part of her brain knew what her senses were denying: that this was a part of a human being. This strange swollen thing had been cut from a body. It had once functioned as part of a living, breathing person. Most likely, it had once killed a living, breathing person.

  ‘I’ll let you look around,’ the curator said.

  ‘Is there an index?’ Stella said, tearing her eyes from the cancerous growth.

  ‘What is it you want to see?’

  ‘I wondered whether you had the names of the people?’

  ‘The surgeons?’

  ‘No. The patients.’

  ‘The samples were often recorded as anonymous. They are displayed here in accordance with the Scottish Human Tissue Act of 2006 and we treat the specimens with the utmost respect. These people advanced our understanding of the human body and helped with vital medical research.’

  Stella recognised an oft-quoted speech when she heard it. ‘So, are any of the specimens identified?’

  ‘We have a pocket book made from Burke’s skin downstairs.’

  ‘Grim,’ Jamie said. ‘I saw that.’

  ‘There are a few other convicted criminals. The hangman was a popular source of cadavers before the 1832 Anatomy Act. There would be a rush to claim the body, with relatives fighting the doctors to cut it down and carry it off. Actual fights . . .’ The curator shook his head. ‘It’s hard to imagine now.’

  On the contrary, Stella found it all too easy. She thought of Jessie and her horror at the bodies being brought into her house in the dead of night. Even after the Anatomy Act, some of those might have been cut from the noose, dug up from a grave, or maybe even worse.

  ‘No index, though.’

  ‘Not of names, no.’

  Jamie turned to Stella. ‘If we knew for sure what she died from, we could search under disease or abnormality.’ He looked at the curator. ‘What about the donors? If people made a bequest to the museum? You had a record of my grandfather’s donation, for example.’

  He smiled. ‘Certainly, we keep those records. How accurate they are as we look further back is hard to say.’

  ‘The museum didn’t always keep records?’ Stella said.

  ‘Not necessarily complete ones.’ The curator spread his hands. ‘Again, it depends on the provenance of some of the samples.’

  ‘Could you look?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Lockhart,’ Jamie said. ‘James Lockhart. Or Jessie Lockhart. His first wife.’

  ‘Please feel free to look around while you wait.’

  ‘They are very helpful,’ Stella said. ‘And it’s nice of them to let us up here.’ She was making small talk to distract herself from the specimens, which seemed to be growing in size the longer she spent on the mezzanine. Truthfully, she wasn’t at all sure that ‘nice’ was the word.

  ‘Great-granddad Munro made a generous donation, I guess it buys goodwill.’

  They moved slowly along the aisle, Jamie peering with great interest at the samples. Stella let go of his hand and moved quickly past when they reached a section of larger jars. A swift glance had told her everything she needed to know and didn’t need to see up close: human
foetuses floating in preserving fluid. Swallowing down a fresh wave of nausea she began moving down the middle passageway, not looking left or right, just thinking to walk to the staircase at the end, down the steps and out into the bland reception area of the museum and wait for Jamie there. She was almost at the end when a bolt of electricity ran down her spine and along her limbs. It was exactly as if someone had touched a live wire to her neck and lit up her central nervous system. Stock-still and barely breathing, Stella waited for the familiar stuttering in her heart. It didn’t come, and she could feel her pulse steady and true.

  As if controlled by some invisible force, Stella felt herself turning to the left. The row of shelves in front of her contained yet more jars. Lines and lines of dead flesh and bone and skin. She didn’t want to see any more. Felt she would never be able to remove the image of a carefully dissected head, the nerves floating free in the liquid like strands of hair or the fine tentacles of a sea creature. Stella was walking forward. She did not intend to do so but could not stop. It was as if the air behind her had become solid and was pushing her onward.

  Once she had reached the jar she was meant to see, she knew it instantly. It was the split-second knowledge that came with the heavy ring of truth. Labelled Heart with anterior hole in chamber, it didn’t have Jessie’s name, of course, but Stella felt certain. The faded paper was handwritten in a delicate sloping hand: Female, 1849 and a reference code, E344.

  Poor Jessie. Stella wondered if Lockhart had dissected his wife’s body. Or sold it to one of his anatomist friends. She reached out her fingers to touch the surface of the jar and felt Jamie join her. ‘You found her,’ he said.

  Stella nodded, her throat suddenly tight. ‘She had a hole in the heart. Like me.’

  Jamie’s arms were around her, holding her steady. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘If she had been born now, she would have had that repaired. She would have been fine.’

  ‘Do you think, mebbe, that he didn’t kill her after all?’