‘The paramedics are trying to get her stabilised. It shouldn’t be fatal, but she’s so drunk they won’t make predictions.’
MacNee shrugged. ‘Frankly she’d not be much of a loss.’
Fleming’s pent-up anger, which had been seething as she dealt with hysterical neighbours, organised an investigation, liaised with social workers about the two toddlers, the baby and the two Staffies and issued a press statement, burst out.
‘Why the hell do we do this job, Tam?’ she raged. ‘Such a sodding waste of our time and the taxpayer’s money! Two worthless people drink themselves stupid and belligerent, then think it’s smart to involve a carving knife in the row they’re having. They terrorise the neighbours and apparently she’s worse than him. Sometimes I think we should leave them to get on with it.’
MacNee raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s not like you, boss.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Fleming said tiredly. ‘It’s this place that’s getting to me.’ She gestured at the rubbish-strewn room. ‘They’re living in a midden and it’s not as if they had anything else to do – even ten minutes with a black plastic bag would help. And now there’ll be three poor bloody kids who didn’t ask to be born to parents like that – at least, she’s presumably their mother, though how many he fathered is a whole other question. They’re going into care, and we know what that means.’
‘Aye. Not that they’d be better off left here. Just another generation of neds in the making.’ MacNee paused. ‘Only we’re not to call them that now, are we?’
Fleming gave a faint smile. ‘Glad the directive’s had some effect. They’re “youngsters in need of choice and chances”, Tam.’
MacNee snorted. ‘Or chancers, for short. Anyway, what more is there we can do tonight?’
Fleming grimaced. ‘I’m waiting to see what happens with her, then I’ll have to go back for the formal bit. Oh, it’s the job, but this is so damn depressing! And I can’t see any hope it’ll improve.’
‘Ah, you need what I heard some guy on the radio describe as Presbyterian optimism – we’re all doomed, but we’re not letting it get us down.’
MacNee grinned hopefully, exposing the gap between his front teeth. Fleming was surprised into a half-laugh.
‘Sorry, Tam. I suppose I’m pissed off anyway because it’s Cat’s last night before she goes off to uni and we were to have a special supper.’
‘You’ll not be back in time, will you?’
‘No. I told them to go ahead.’ Fleming sighed. She’d been doing a lot of sighing this evening.
Christie Jack was feeling cheerful as she came down the drive from Lovatt’s farmhouse on her way to the Smugglers. Today had been a good day, with the excitement of the news team, and seeing herself on the telly too. Matt was pleased, said they’d done really well. It gave her a warm glow, Matt’s approval.
When she saw Melissa Lovatt sitting on a grassy knoll, staring out across Fleet Bay, she checked, pulling a face. She’d have to say something, but it would probably turn out to be the wrong something. Lissa was the sort of woman Christie despised – droopy, a bit weird, either sick as a parrot or over the moon, and if you didn’t get the tone right, she’d a genius for making you feel uncomfortable. Poor Matt spent his life on tiptoe.
Christie liked to think she was tough. She’d had to be. The only way to get respect was to fight for it and she’d no truck with people who whinged. You needed to put it all behind you and get on with life, that was all. Which was perhaps why she’d been so totally poleaxed when everything fell apart.
It came out of a clear sky, a bleached sky with a blistering white sun and air that was shimmering with heat. Just an ordinary day, as ordinary as a day ever was when there were towelheads out there trying to kill you and you were in a Snatch Land Rover that offered about as much protection from roadside bombs as a frilly nightie. But you didn’t let yourself think about that, any more than you worried about personal freshness when your whole body was permanently bathed in sweat.
Just an ordinary convoy, just the commute to work, except it never followed a regular route. Just an ordinary Afghan village they were driving through, with its street of ramshackle houses and the men standing talking in groups who turned their heads as the vehicles passed. No waves this morning. Sometimes they waved, sometimes they didn’t.
Then a movement in a dark doorway, caught a fraction of a second before the grenade came arcing through the air, slowly, slowly, as if it were floating, and yet too quickly for the officer standing on recce in the hatch to duck, and the world exploded. A hell of gunfire, primitive yelling and whooping, then tearing groans – groans right at her side, and the smell of terror and hot blood as her comrade bled to death. Her own hands slippery as she tried futilely to staunch the flow. An animal scream, which she recognised as her own voice …
It was a sound that became familiar over the next weeks and months. The first flashback hit a week after – and again, and again and again. Without warning she would be right back there, and a quivering wreck wasn’t much use as a soldier.
They’d given her treatment, but in the end she had been given a medical discharge, feeling an abject failure and impossible to live with. She was so angry – angry with herself, angry with everyone who crossed her path, angry with the whole world. She’d dumped her boyfriend before he could dump her; he hadn’t protested and getting through the day took so much energy she barely noticed he’d gone. And all sorts of things had started crawling out of the woodwork, too, things Christie thought she’d banished long ago. Her coping strategies simply weren’t working any more.
It didn’t help that she was skint, going without proper food to pay rent for her lousy bedsit, living with the ‘what-if’ terror. She’d been homeless before, until the army took her in; they’d washed their hands of her now.
The chance encounter with her former CO was a sort of miracle. He’d served with Matt Lovatt in Bosnia and heard his plan of offering a bolt-hole for soldiers needing peaceful R and R.
‘A working holiday for as long as you need it,’ he had explained, ‘though the work’s meant to be therapeutic rather than a quid pro quo.’
Christie wasn’t entirely certain what a quid pro quo was, but she could understand all about a roof over her head and food she didn’t have to pay for. She could hack it, whatever it was like.
Yet she’d actually considered leaving, the first couple of days. It was kind of a weird household, for a start, with odd relationships – a job lot of emotional cripples, though Kerr was the only one who actually had a missing leg. And it was so effing quiet! No music, except sometimes the classical stuff with no proper tune, no banter, no outlet for the aggression constantly bubbling below the surface as Christie was politely grateful and on her best behaviour. The nightmares were worse than ever.
That second night, sweating and trembling, she went down to the kitchen to escape them. It was July, one o’clock in the morning, and the darkness was lifting already. In the cool grey light she made tea and found a handful of Hobnobs; she was still perpetually hungry, craving the comfort of starch and sugar. When the door opened she jumped guiltily.
Kerr Brodie limped into the room. He was a thickset man with grizzled grey hair; he smiled a lot but Christie noticed the smile seldom reached his hard grey eyes. He was fully dressed; he obviously hadn’t gone to bed yet. He grinned at her startled movement.
‘At ease, soldier. Heard you moving about.’ He sat down at the table. ‘Got the heebie-jeebies, then?’
The silly term got her on the raw. Digging her nails into her palms, she said, ‘I’m fine.’
‘That’ll be right,’ he said sardonically, then took out some keys and threw them across. ‘The major’s orders. These are for the small motor boat. There’s a shack on the island with bedding and blankets. Get across there and yell for a bit. He’ll leave food till you’re ready to come back.’
Being there alone might just push her over the edge, but she was past caring. She took th
e keys and went.
After three strange days when Christie spoke to no one, screamed, cried and hurled rocks into the sea, she felt spent and peaceful. The fourth night, she slept like a baby.
Back at the farmhouse, she still had bad days, but could believe now that eventually the horrors would recede. With hard physical work she slept more soundly and on bad days she could go to the island and let the murmur of wind and waves which was somehow part of a deep, deep silence wrap itself all about her.
She seriously owed Matt, and by extension Lissa too, though it was hard to see what she’d contributed. Christie pinned on a big smile now as she approached.
‘Hi, Lissa!’
It was much colder now the sun was only a line of gold down on the horizon, but Lissa didn’t seem to have noticed. She’d pulled her cotton print dress over her bent knees and was clasping them, her blue eyes dreamy. She was small, with a faded prettiness, brown curling hair and fine, pale skin, but her cheekbones were too sharply defined in her thin face.
She looked round. ‘Isn’t it a perfect evening? And look!’ She reached down to delicate blue flowers growing by her feet, cupping one tenderly in her fingers. ‘I love harebells. Witches’ bells – that was the old name. Hares are witches’ familiars, you know, and they were meant to ring to warn them if the fox was around.’
‘Mmm.’ Christie tried not to wince. ‘I’m off to the pub. Fancy coming?’
Oh God, she’d done it again. ‘You know what they’re like,’ Lissa said, blue eyes tragically reproachful.
‘Mmm,’ Christie murmured again. ‘Well, see you later.’
Yes, she knew what they were like. A few poisonous characters holding a grudge, and the rest absorbed in their own lives and indifferent to strangers. But once you’d hung out for a bit the regulars were mostly friendly, and during the summer there were all the holidaymakers too. If she was still here come the winter, she couldn’t quite see herself walking along to socialise with the bizarrely awful Derek, but towards the weekend even now there was usually quite a jolly crowd. Matt and Lissa were making a big mistake in cutting themselves off, even if neither of them was exactly sociable.
As Christie reached the Smugglers, a group of young men appeared from the opposite direction. They were in high spirits, one with a helium balloon tied to his wrist, wearing a T-shirt with messages scribbled on it, mostly obscene.
They arrived just as she did, but the one in front stepped back to usher her ahead of them. He was seriously fit – big and broad-shouldered, with close-cropped dark hair and brown eyes. Christie smiled a thank you.
The pub was quite full now and Georgia was being kept busy, but when she caught sight of Christie’s new acquaintance she called, ‘Andy! Didn’t know you were around. Come and give us a kiss, then.’
Andy, grinning, obliged. ‘I’ve borrowed the family caravan for a weekend with some of my mates. Can you do us a jug of beer?’
‘Course I can, my love. Having a party?’ She began pulling pints into a large jug.
‘Wake, more like. This guy’s getting married.’ Andy jerked a thumb at his sheepish-looking friend.
‘Should be you, by rights. Your mum and dad were saying you needed to find a nice girl and get settled.’
‘Plenty time for that. I’m still young …’
Georgia wiped off the jug and set it down. ‘Getting older all the time, petal. Still, make the most of it.’
‘Trust me.’ Andy winked, then noticed Christie was standing patiently beside the bar. ‘Oops, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This young lady was ahead of us, Georgia.’
‘Sorry, dear,’ Georgia echoed. ‘What’s it to be?’
Christie saw ‘Andy’ was looking at her properly for the first time. ‘Put it on my slate, Georgia,’ he said. ‘An apology for queue-jumping.’
He had a great smile. Christie smiled too. ‘No need. But … oh, just a Becks, thanks.’
‘Cheers!’ he said, pouring out beer for himself and passing the jug to one of his friends, but he didn’t rejoin the group. They introduced themselves: he was Andy Macdonald, from Kirkluce, and his mates, after sidelong looks and some pointed remarks, settled at the end of the bar, with a bit of good-natured jostling.
Then the bomb went off. Christie screamed, a piercing, full-blooded scream, looked wildly about her, then dived under the nearest table with her hands round her head. An absolute silence fell.
Then Andy’s arms were round her. ‘It’s all right, Christie, it’s all right. One of these idiots just burst Dave’s balloon, that’s all.’
Half dazed, she sat up, then felt a hot tide of embarrassment flood right through her, turning her face puce. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Oh God! How humiliating.’
Conversations began again, with sympathetic murmurs and glances. Some people had obviously seen the TV programme, though Andy clearly hadn’t. As he helped her up, her face still aflame, one of his friends who looked almost as uncomfortable as Christie felt came to apologise for bursting the balloon.
‘Sorry’ seemed to be the key word tonight. He said it several times, she said it several times, each politely laid claim to total stupidity, then he went back to the group with obvious relief.
Christie’s heart was still pounding and her legs were shaky. She needed to sit down before she fell down and made a fool of herself all over again. She headed for a window seat.
‘I’m fine now, thanks,’ she said to Andy, who was still holding her arm. ‘You go back to your mates.’
‘I’d rather talk to you.’
They squeezed on to the narrow seat and he said, ‘Right. Tell me what all that was about.’
When Matt Lovatt, his dog loping alongside, appeared on his way to the boat half an hour later, Lissa was still sitting there. He waved, not slowing down, but she scrambled to her feet.
‘Are you going to the island? I’ll come.’
He groaned inwardly. He loved being alone on his island on a soft night, when colour had gone from the sky and it became a place of shadows and ambiguity, when his pretty dappled deer could slip into the trees and mysteriously vanish, when the offshore breeze died and everything went still.
He knew, too, why Lissa wanted to go – she only ever had one reason, which always broke her apart all over again. Anyway, Matt would have liked to check before she did – he’d found a nasty little message sprayed on the headstone recently.
‘Won’t you be cold like that, Lissa? And it’s getting dark. I’m just dumping concentrate for the deer and coming straight back.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I want to take him these. He’d like them.’ She bent to pick some harebells, making a dainty posy.
‘Fine,’ Matt said. She followed him to the jetty, walking on the grass verge in bare feet. At a gesture, the dog jumped into the motor boat, sitting like a figurehead in the prow. Matt helped Lissa aboard and started the engine.
Her eyes were fixed on the island – wide, hungry eyes. Matt glanced at her, then glanced away. With hindsight, he’d been crazy: he could easily have said a burial on the island wouldn’t be allowed. It was unfortunate he’d remembered the consecrated ground around the tiny ruined chapel, with a couple of old headstones weathered to anonymity, and exploited that to get permission. Close by was the burial cairn and the Norse graves; Matt had liked to think of the child, who had never lived and now was little more than a scar on his mind, in the company of the old warriors.
If he was honest, it had been a bid for permanence. For the first time in his life he had felt rooted; the island was his place. Lissa would never want to leave if the grave was there. It hadn’t occurred to him that his salvation might be his wife’s destruction.
He swept round to bring the boat in, jumped ashore to tie up and held out his hand to help Lissa ashore. In her other hand the fragile flowers were losing colour, wilting already, dying in front of his eyes. The symbolism was deeply uncomfortable.
Matt clicked his fingers and the dog came to heel. ‘I’ll go to the bothy the
n come back here. Don’t hurry – I’ll wait for you.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’
In the deepening dusk he couldn’t see her face, but he knew the look – the one he had seen so often, asking for something he couldn’t give and filling him with guilt at his failure. If there was graffiti on the headstone, it was too late to do anything about it now.
‘No,’ he said gruffly.
Lissa paused briefly then set off on the grass in her bare feet, ignoring the track which curved round the hill then ran from one end of the island to the other.
Matt watched her go before he followed the track to the bothy. Sheltered by the trees at the seaward end of the island, it had housed a shepherd in his grandfather’s day. Matt had made it weatherproof with a storage area below and basic accommodation above where you could doss down if you had a sick animal or an orphan fawn.
There were a couple of does moving about, browsing and nibbling at low scrub. Dawn and dusk were their times; they were happier in half-light, like all prey animals. One raised her head as he passed, pricking the ears that looked far too large for the neat head, her tongue going out to moisten the shiny, plastic-looking nose. Then she went back to her bushes. They were used to him, and even to the dog at his heels, though sometimes it sniffed the air as if some atavistic memory stirred.
Matt did his errand, then returned to the boat. He had no idea how long Lissa might be and with the dog again in the prow, he settled down to wait.
From across the water he heard a brief, strange, coughing roar, and his head came up, listening. It wasn’t repeated, but Matt smiled. They’d have to bring in the stags tomorrow and isolate them; the rut was beginning. It wouldn’t be long before the buck on the island was barking his intentions too.
It was only minutes later he saw Lissa coming back down the hill, pale dress glimmering like a ghost in the gathering darkness. He bent to start the engine. It meant he didn’t have to see the tears he knew would be trickling down her face.
Evil for Evil Page 3
