by Sarah Maine
And then the hammering started.
She turned her head at the sound. It must be coming from outdoors, close by. But what—? Then she saw that the light from the hall behind her had disappeared and remembered the unboarded window. She rushed back across the hall, shouting out, tripping in her haste, and began banging with her fists on newly fixed plywood which now covered her escape.
The hammering stopped abruptly, she heard a curse, and then the sound of nails being wrenched out. The boarding shifted, and she found herself face-to-face with a man with dark hair and angry eyes.
“Can’t you read, for Christ’s sake?” He rested the boarding against the wall, kicked the fish crate back into position under the window, and jerked his head. “Out.” And he stood back, offering no assistance, watching her clamber, wrong-footed, back across the ledge.
“Wait. Let me explain. I’m not trespassing, I—” Her jeans caught on a protruding nail and tore. Damn. “Look, it’s really alright—”
The man was not listening, and as soon as her feet touched the ground he tossed the fish crate back into the thistles and lifted the boarding again. “There’s nothing left to steal in there anyway.”
“Steal? No! You misunderstand. This is my—” Why was that so difficult to say? This is my house. She winced as staccato hammering drowned out her words, but then the man seemed to catch their meaning, and he stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. He lowered his arm, his eyes narrowing, and she found herself being scrutinised with a disconcerting intensity. His lean face bore the signs of an outdoor life, and beneath the old woollen jersey she sensed physical strength. “Are you Ruairidh Forbes?” she asked, struggling to regain some measure of control. What a start.
“No.” The man continued his inspection. Then: “So why go through the window? Haven’t you got keys?”
“Not yet. He has them. Mr. Forbes, that is—” She dug her nails into her palm. The man clearly thought her a fool, damn him. “I’m about to go and call on him.”
But he was now looking past her, over her shoulder, back towards the strand, and she saw his expression lighten. “No need,” he said. “He’s come to call on you.”
She turned to see that another vehicle, an ancient Saab, was coming up the track towards them. The driver halted below the house, perhaps not wanting to risk the low-slung vehicle on the rutted track. He slammed the car door and came towards them, followed by a black-and-white collie. “Right on cue,” said the first man, leaning back against the Land Rover, his eyes alive with amusement. “Morning, Ruairidh. Let me introduce Muirlan House’s new mistress. I’ve just evicted her.”
His tone made her flush, but the newcomer looked at her with sharp interest and came forward. “Harriet Deveraux? I’d no idea,” he said, and held out his hand.
“Hetty,” she said, taking it.
He looked about forty, several years older than the first man, a few stone heavier and, on first showing, a damn sight nicer. “Had you written again?”
She shook her head. “A spur-of-the-moment decision.” Triggered, as it had been, by an intense desire to leave London. And Giles— “I was going to wait until June when I had more time.”
He held on to her hand a moment, then relinquished it. “I’d have met the ferry had I known. Have you somewhere to stay?”
“Yes. Just over there.” She gestured across the sand towards the cottage.
“Dùghall’s place? Well, well . . .”
He lowered his bushy eyebrows to cover a glance towards the other man who, she knew, was continuing to stare at her. But he now stepped forward and put out his hand. “James Cameron.” She took it and waited for an apology. “You took a risk, you know, going in there.” He turned to put his tools back in the Land Rover and described their encounter to the newcomer with ill-concealed amusement, adding, “The place is a death trap.”
No apology, then.
Ruairidh Forbes shook his head with kindly concern. “Dear oh dear! What a welcome.”
“If something had fallen on you, it’d be your—” He now glanced at the other man and stopped midsentence. “You’ll have to tell her, Ruairidh.” He shut the back of the Land Rover and leant against it again, arms folded. “Sooner or later.”
The other man looked unhappy. “Aye. I know.” And as he told her, she understood why.
“Human remains?” she said, when he had finished. Whatever else she had expected, it had not included this. “Who? Do you know?”
“No idea. Just bones. You see, James only found them yesterday, and we couldn’t get back across until now, so I’ve not seen them. I’ll have a quick look, then contact my colleagues on the mainland.” She nodded dumbly, thinking that when she’d learned that her key holder was a part-time police officer she hadn’t expected to need his professional services.
“A tramp, perhaps?” she ventured, a derelict who’d taken shelter, or drunk himself to death. Surely no one could actually get trapped inside, could they? Unless— Oh God. “Was it . . . Did something fall on—?” Her mind raced towards negligence claims and lawsuits. She’d had ownership for less than a couple of months, but what would her position be?
“The corpse was stashed under the floor-boards, so no.” James Cameron was still slouched against the Land Rover, watching her, and the significance of his words took a moment to hit her.
“Under the floor-boards?”
He nodded.
The policeman returned her another apologetic look. “A bad business,” he said, and gestured to the Saab. “Why don’t you sit in the car, miss, while we take a look?”
She stood, staring back at him, then shook her head quickly. “No. I’ll come. I’d better see—”
James Cameron straightened and produced hard hats from the back of the Land Rover, shutting Ruairidh’s dog inside the vehicle, and went to unlock the heavy padlock on the front door. He stood aside as she made a more conventional entrance, then followed her in. Dazed still, she paused just inside, and in that instant she had a fleeting image of past splendour, seen through sunlit shafts of suspended dust . . . But the men were waiting for her.
James went on ahead, and Ruairidh ushered her through to the little annex where she had seen the wheelbarrow and tools. James was crouched beside them, his dark hair falling forward as he pulled aside the plastic sheet which was covering the disturbed ground.
They went and stood beside him, and looked down at pale bones lit from above, at the damaged skull lying on its side in a parody of sleep, the empty eye socket forlorn and sorrowful. Hetty felt a tightening in her chest. A heavy pall seemed to hang in the air, and it all felt unreal, and wrong. Dreadfully wrong.
“Poor devil,” the policeman said, crouching down. “A bad spot that, just above the temple.”
Only the upper part of the skeleton was visible, and James Cameron was scraping gently with a penknife at the soil and mortar which framed the skull. “See what I meant? It looks as if the bedding material was packed around and on top of the body, and then the floor-boards were laid on top.”
The scene was almost unimaginable.
“To have been buried there, and no one knowing.” Her words fell into a pool of silence.
“Someone knew,” said Ruairidh after a moment, then he straightened, dusting his hands together. “Let’s cover them up again, Jamie.”
She stepped aside to give them space, but almost immediately she heard the younger man exclaim, and she turned back to see him pointing with the tip of his knife blade at something glinting amongst the sand and rubble. Ruairidh crouched again. “Can you free it?” he asked, and they watched as James scratched the sandy soil away to reveal an oval locket strung on a gold chain. “Is it a woman, then?” The policeman’s voice was grim. Clouds covered the sun, dimming the light, and Hetty looked up through the broken roof. A woman?
“An expensive piece.” James turned the locket over and rubbed his thumb across a scrolling pattern of initials. “What is it? BJS, SJB? Can’t tell when they’re all on t
op of each other. Do I open it?” He looked across at the other man, who hesitated a moment and then nodded. He slid the blade between the two halves of the locket.
Inside lay a curl of hair, and underneath it, a feather. Nothing else. No further inscription, no picture, just a lock of hair tied with thin twine and the feather, reduced to little more than a few spines and dust.
Chapter 3
1910, Beatrice
Beatrice stood on a little headland and saw the house at last, lit by strong sunlight. Fine-weather clouds cast fleeting shadows over the wet sand as they sped across the sky, drawing her on towards the island. But a moment later a darker one skidded over the sun, plunging the house into shade, and she looked around her thinking of Theo’s paintings, which had, after all, only hinted at the extraordinary quality of the light. Intense and ever-changing.
A sharp breeze reminded her that the year was still young and untried, and it carried a sour tang from the seaweed piled up on the high-tide mark. A bird circled her, emitting an urgent, piping cry as she stood there, the wind tugging at her skirt, lifting the brim of her hat. She spent a moment tying the ribbons more tightly, and when she looked up the cloud had passed and the house was once again flooded with light. A faint heat haze shimmered off the sand, blurring the shoreline ahead.
The scene held her transfixed until she heard her name called, and she turned to see her husband beckoning. She had left him overseeing the transfer of their trunks to a waiting farm cart, cautioning care with his painting materials, and had picked her way down to the shoreline. He watched her as she returned to him, searching her face as he assisted her onto the trap, before springing up beside her, taking the reins, and guiding the horse down onto the sand. “Edinburgh’s in another world,” she said, and he smiled at her.
Just two days ago she had sat at the window of their private compartment, engrossed, watched indulgently by Theo as the train steamed out of Waverley Station, leaving Edinburgh behind them. This journey might be nothing to someone as well-travelled as he, but Beatrice had rarely left the city, and the sky-hued flush of bluebells on woodland floors and the gorse aflame on the fells had filled her with delight.
But nothing in her experience had prepared her for the rugged grandeur of the Highlands, for the great procession of mountains sweeping down to tongues of glittering water which spread wider as the train headed west to become the ocean itself. Nor had the small ferry across the narrow strait to Skye prepared her for the sea crossing to the islands. “It’ll be rough,” Theo had warned, “and I expect you’ll be sick.” But he had been wrong, and she had remained on the oil-stained deck throughout, warm in her travelling coat, untroubled by the noise and smoke from the mail boat’s engines, captivated by the blue-grey sea and the islands spread about her.
“Theo, I had no idea—” she had breathed, catching at her escaping hair.
He had stood beside her, a tall, well-made man, his hands grasping the rails, the wind blowing his hair across his brow, eyes narrowing to follow a line of gannets heading out to sea, shedding his city veneer before her eyes. But what was he thinking, she had wondered, this two-month husband of hers. One could never be quite certain, his face hid his emotions too well. A moment later he had turned back to her, his eyes warming a private smile as he bent to kiss her.
As the trap crossed the sand on this final stretch of the journey, she resumed her study of him. He was a handsome man, without a doubt, but so far she had known him only as a creature of the Edinburgh drawing rooms and galleries where they had met, and where he was an established figure, confident of the position which his money, intellect, and talent had earned him. But here, out of context, she found he was a stranger again.
He had been animated as he prepared for their departure, and purposeful, ensuring she packed suitable clothing and footwear, breaking off to explain to her the workings of the camera he had bought. “But you will paint too?” she had asked, and he had answered with a curious fervour that he certainly hoped he would. And there had been an energy, an eagerness in him on the journey as he had overseen the porters dealing with their trunks at the railway stations, and he had been impatient at the late departure of the mail boat. But as they approached the long line of islands, he had fallen silent, and she had sensed him detaching himself from her.
“It has an almost Aegean quality on days like this,” he said suddenly, his expression lightening. “But wait until the westerlies strike up. Then you’ll change your tune.” She dismissed the westerlies with an airy wave and slipped her hand under his arm, drawing close, and he smiled down at her again. And now, with their destination in sight, she sensed excitement growing in him, and she stretched her eyes across the strand to Muirlan Island, on the edge of the world.
This was how he had described it to her. “And beyond there be dragons!” he had said, his eyes glinting in the way she had grown to love. It was his refuge, he had said, a place of wild beauty, a special place, with endless stretches of bone-white sand, vast skies, and the sea—an ever-changing palette.
Then he had returned to practicalities. Although the house was large by local standards, they would not be living in grand style. “Perhaps you’ll find it primitive.” He did not retain a large staff; she must make do with local girls recruited for the summer from amongst the tenants, who would be overseen by Mrs. Henderson, the housekeeper. “There’s no Mr. Henderson, by the way. Never has been, so don’t ask.” She looked blank. “There’s a daughter, you see.” The estate and the tenants, he continued, were managed by the factor, John Forbes, who farmed the estate on Theo’s behalf. “A very competent fellow. His father came as factor from Paisley with my father, but John’s an islander to his marrow. We were boys together.” The factor was assisted by a grown son, and a daughter who kept house for them, his wife having died many years ago. Another son was in Canada. “They’ve been more or less running the place for years.” And he had frowned suddenly—his Edinburgh face. “They’ll have to adjust, and there hasn’t been a mistress in the place since my stepmother fled the island.”
“Fled the island?”
“She did find it primitive.”
He had given her a thin smile, and doubt had flickered across his face, but she had tugged at his sleeve. “I’m entirely out of sympathy with Edinburgh, Theo. I want something quite, quite different.” Did he fear a repetition, she wondered, thinking that she too might turn and flee? She had met his stepmother and knew that Theo held her in contempt, but if it was his father’s remarriage that had driven him away as a young man, what had prevented him from spending time there since his stepmother had left? She realised that he had a deep bond with this place, and it was the inspiration for so many of his early paintings, yet in recent years he’d told her that his visits had been infrequent and fleeting. And now, as they passed the midway point across the strand, she saw his face had taken on a strained look and his eyes were fixed on the house with the keen look of a hawk as it reckons its chances of success.
Puzzled slightly, she turned her own attention back to the house. It stood on a low ridge, its walls rising high above the landscape, out of all proportion with its surroundings. She could see a small roof turret at the front, crow-step gables, and long windows glinting in the sun. What on earth had inspired Theo’s father—a textile manufacturer, not a belted knight—to build such a house? Here, in this remote place . . . And whatever must the islanders make of it? She thought of the low rough-hewn dwellings they had passed, which she had assumed were barns or byres. When she had asked Theo where the people actually lived, his explanation had astonished her, and she had studied the next ones more closely, trying to imagine what life must be like for the gap-toothed women who gossiped under low eaves, swathed in shawls, or bent over tin tubs, some straightening to follow the trap with shaded eyes. Dirty children ran out into the track, leaving little ones watching from behind peat stacks; a few returned her wave. And she had thought of the trolley buses and motor cars on Edinburgh’s streets as a sma
ll donkey, struggling under peat-laden baskets, was jerked aside to let them pass. Expressionless stares had followed them.
And now, as the trap left the strand, Muirlan House came sharply into focus. It appeared more forbidding as they drew close, but she declared stoutly that it combined all the charm of a Walter Scott novel with the romance of a desert island. “Will you feel the same in six months’ time, I wonder?” Theo responded, and she was thrown against him as the trap pulled up the rocky foreshore.
Ahead of them the track forked, one branch leading off to the factor’s house and farm buildings a little below the ridge, the other becoming a more conventional drive lined with bushes alive with the twitter of small birds. They passed between two stone pillars where a number of men in rough clothes stood beside the open gate. The tenants, she thought, scanning their bearded faces, and they looked back at her, pulling off their caps as Theo raised a hand in greeting. Then the men turned away to follow the laden farm cart round to the back of the house.
“John’s rallied the forces to welcome you,” said Theo, nodding towards the front entrance, where several women were assembled, their skirts and white aprons blowing in the breeze. The trap came to a halt beside them in the shadow of the entrance porch, and an imposing figure in dark tweeds detached himself and stepped forward, followed by a younger man, who took the reins from Theo. “Welcome home, Mr. Blake,” he said, and nodded respectfully at Beatrice. “Welcome, madam.”
“Good to see you, John.” Theo stepped down from the trap to shake his hand. “And what a welcome.” He acknowledged the waiting women as he walked round to Beatrice’s side to assist her descent. “Beatrice, my dear, this is Mr. Forbes. John, my wife.”
The factor’s smile lit brown eyes above a full beard with an unexpected warmth, and he held out his hand. “You’re very welcome here, Mrs. Blake.” His voice was a low rumble and his handclasp firm. The youth, a slimmer version of the factor, was introduced as his son Donald, who murmured an inarticulate greeting as he clung doggedly to the reins. Then Theo went forward to greet a woman who had stepped forward, and Beatrice followed him, glancing anxiously up at the house. Was she to be mistress of such a place? Theo Blake, her mother had told her, would have expectations of her— But he seemed unaware of her apprehension, introducing her to Mrs. Henderson, the housekeeper, who seemed a pleasant woman, and nodded again to the other women who stood in line behind her. As he turned back to speak to the factor, Beatrice looked about her, taking in the terrace and a sunken rectangle where there had been some attempt at a garden. In one sheltered corner, a rustic seat, framed by trelliswork, was under construction. A garden, she thought, seemed a good idea.
