by Sarah Maine
They went next to stand at the door of what he told her had been the morning room. “Although Aonghas said in his day it was used to store lumber—and turnips.” He shrugged at her puzzled expression. “And the bit added on to it, where the bones are, had been intended as a conservatory but was never really finished. Whoever built it were complete cowboys, unskilled tenants probably, and what they did compromised the original wall. Come outside and I’ll show you.” And he took her round to the side and pointed out a great crack, which spread up the wall above the sloping roof of the conservatory, fissuring and branching under windows and eaves. “It’s my guess the foundations shifted after they levelled the ground.” He gave her a long look. “They broke its back, you see, and if that wall goes now, it’ll bring the rest with it.”
She nodded slowly. “So what do you suggest?”
“Unless you’re prepared to spend a fortune, there’s only one option.” He hesitated, watching her face. “Pull the whole thing down.” She looked up sharply, in disbelief, every part of her protesting. “Salvage what you can, build yourself a cottage on the site, and consign Muirlan House to history where it belongs.” And he walked on, round the back of the house, giving her space to absorb the blow.
She stood where he had left her, staring at the damaged wall, and saw her plans splintering into similar fractured pieces. And the house seemed to stare back at her, indifferent to its fate, past caring.
Eventually she followed him and stood, only half-listening, as he pointed out the various outbuildings—the scullery, the washhouse, and the stores—unwilling to be convinced by his verdict, and resisting. Then she waited as he secured the padlock on the front door, dully watching him pocket the keys, searching for the words to challenge him.
“I’ve seen places in a worse state on those restoration programmes,” she said, but even to her ears this sounded weak.
“Have you?” was all he said.
So she said nothing more as he drove her back across the sand but thought again of that first evening when she’d seen the house, lit by the evening sun, and been enthralled by the sight. She had only this man’s opinion, after all, and she sensed there was something else driving that opinion. Some agenda of his own— She knew what Giles would say if she told him. Get someone else, for Christ’s sake! Get Emma onto it—or leave it to me. I’ll find someone.
But she wasn’t going to tell Giles.
She straightened her shoulders as they drew up outside her cottage. Not yet, anyway. She wasn’t prepared to give up that easily.
First off, she needed to get the keys back and turned to ask him for them, but he forestalled her. “Let’s look at the report, shall we, while it’s all fresh in your mind.” And he reached into the back of the Land Rover and pulled out a briefcase.
“What report?”
He looked at her. “The one I sent to Emma Dawson.”
“When?”
“A week or so ago.” He raised an eyebrow at her expression, then got out and came round to open her door. “You haven’t seen it? I thought that was why you’d come.”
Damn Emma Dawson! She unlocked the cottage door, which stuck again, and watched, wrong-footed once more, as James shouldered it open and then stood aside to let her pass.
They were met by a chill dampness which suggested that the cottage’s night storage heaters had defeated her as comprehensively as the peat. She apologised for the temperature and gestured him into the sitting room while she made tea. Why hadn’t Emma told her she’d received a report? Or had she told Giles instead? She frowned as she selected the best of the cheap mugs, remembering other occasions when this had happened.
Reversing through the door with the laden tray five minutes later, she found James crouched by the fire, effortlessly coaxing the peat into life. He straightened as she entered and brought his briefcase over to the table, pulled out a chair for her, and sat down opposite, tossing his jacket aside. He accepted a mug of tea with a nod, rolled up his sleeves, and his whole demeanour seemed to change. He became serious and professional, waiting until she was settled and then going through the report page by page, explaining his points clearly and carefully, looking at her to check each time that she had understood, drawing neat, concise diagrams with a sharpened pencil if he thought she hadn’t, demanding her full attention. By the end of an hour, she had to admit that his survey had been thorough—and it was damning.
He sat back at last, tapping his teeth with the pencil end, and looked at her. “So, there you have it,” he said after a moment, and gestured hopefully towards the teapot. “The problems go back a long way, and Blake let things slide badly in his later years.” He spooned sugar into the replenished mug, stirring it slowly. “And since then all the original features have either been nicked or relocated throughout the islands, though I imagine the fireplaces were fenced through Glasgow.” He studied her face for a moment. “I’m not saying restoration can’t be done, like the projects you’ve seen on the box, but what you’re planning will cost you the thick end of a million. Minimum.” He sipped his tea, watching her absorb this, then asked more gently if she had considered the costs of running such a place. “No one lives out there now for a reason, you know, and providing even the basic services will be a huge expense. It never had electricity, and drinking water had to be piped across the strand from a pump house on the main island. They say it took eighty cartloads of peat to heat the place in the cold months, so translate that into oil at today’s prices if you will.”
He sat back again, still watching her over the rim of his mug, and there was silence between them. Then the peat shifted in the fireplace and warmth began to spread through the room. “You must think me very naïve,” she said at last.
“You hadn’t seen the place, had you?” He set down his mug. “And you got swept up with a dream. Nothing wrong with that, of course, we all need dreams, but even dreams need foundations.” He began gathering his papers together, giving her a twisted smile. “I’d an idea to try and save the house myself a few years ago.”
“You did?”
“Presumptuous, wasn’t it?” His eyes glinted briefly as he took in her expression. “We didn’t know there was any of the family left and thought we’d get it for a song.” So was this the problem? Had she somehow thwarted him? “But after the fireplaces went, Ruairidh managed to track down your grandmother’s solicitors. And then, well, other matters intervened.” She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “Even then a cursory inspection showed it would be impossible—or at least with the budget I could muster, and now the roof’s going, it’s quickening the end.” He paused. “So if you don’t pull it down, nature’ll soon do the job for you.”
Later that day she strolled along the shore and looked across at the island, remembering his last words as he turned at the door. “Ruairidh and I spent our childhood playing around the two houses and it got into the blood, so to speak.” He paused. “And there’s a sadness now, seeing it fall apart, like watching a great beast roll over and die.” Rolling over and revealing its secrets—and for a moment his eyes had held hers. “It’s hard, I know, but when you think about it, it always was an aberration. A place like that, up here? Crazy. Just let it go.”
She looked now along the shoreline, to where an unmarked police vehicle was parked at the end of the track, awaiting the return of the inflatable which had crossed the tide-filled bay, taking a police inspector out there an hour ago. But letting go was no longer possible; she couldn’t just take some photographs and walk away—it was now in her blood too. She’d been drawn by a thin familial thread to this place, and that thread had led her to the bones, and she was now responsible, compelled somehow to trace the thread back, and maybe understand.
And there was now too a lost soul to lay to rest.
She looked to the west and saw that the sun was sinking behind a distant cloud bank, and the water was a gunmetal grey, flecked with white. She shivered, remembering what Ruairidh had said last night about Blake�
�s death, about how his body had been found when the tide had ebbed, caught amongst rocks in the middle of the strand. Had he misjudged the tides? she’d asked, but he had shrugged. No one had been there, no one had seen.
Then a low buzzing sound caught her ear, and she looked back to see that the inflatable was leaving the island, heading towards her, leaving a shallow wake. As it drew close, she saw Ruairidh raise the outboard clear of the shallow water as James leapt out onto the sand, and she went down the foreshore to meet them.
“I’ll let you know if there’s anything relevant in the missing person file.” The inspector and the two island men had found places to sit in her tiny sitting room, concluded the necessary formalities, and had been given tea. “But don’t hold your breath.” He switched his attention to James. “Tell me what you said earlier about the time frame.”
James was sitting on the arm of the chair occupied by his cousin, his long legs stretched out in front of him, swallowing his tea. “You saw how the skull was up against that big rock in the foundations? Well, that rock was frost-fractured and split, so I think they’d removed the rest of it to level the land before they built the conservatory. A daft thing to do, given the sandy soils, but it left that hollow—”
“So during those building works, you think?” The inspector stopped writing to look up at him.
“Makes sense.”
“Any chance of finding out who did the work?”
“I doubt it. There’s no estate archive to speak of.”
“But you reckon it was carried out when?” He began writing again.
“Early photos show there was open ground there before the conservatory was built, and they’re pre-war. First war, that is.”
“Earlier,” Ruairidh interjected. “The Blakes left the island in 1911 and stayed away for years. There’d be no building work after they’d gone.”
“When did they come back?”
“Donkey’s years later. And by then Blake was on his own.”
The inspector looked up. “The wife?”
“She’d left him.”
“Children?”
“None.”
Hetty scanned their faces, remembering what Ùna Forbes had said. “Do you think it could be her? His wife, I mean?”
“Ach, it could be anyone,” said the inspector, giving her a brief smile as he put away his notebook. “The locket suggests a woman, but the lab will be able to tell us in due course. They’ll collect DNA too and see where that leaves us. If you’d be willing to give a sample, it might show if there’s any Blake connection.” That frail thread, gossamer thin . . . “Though it won’t help if it is Blake’s wife.”
“Take mine too,” said Ruairidh. “My family’s been on the estate for generations, and his lot are connected too.” He pointed to James with his spoon.
“Take mine by all means, but you could have the whole island’s DNA and be no wiser,” said James. “We’ve been marrying our cousins for centuries. No new blood since the Vikings came, the traffic’s been all the other way.”
Chapter 7
1910, Beatrice
It took a moment or two before Beatrice’s eyes adjusted after the strong sunlight outside. Her city heels clicked across the tiled hall ahead of Theo, and she halted at the foot of the stairs, swinging her hat, taking in her surroundings while he gave instructions regarding the trunks. A red deer, glassy-eyed and arrogant, snubbed her from the half-landing while a fox crouched warily on top of a bookcase. Other eyes were watching too, a host of baleful creatures, staring blankly. Had they also assembled to inspect her?
She looked around her. The hall seemed faded and dusty, lulled to sleep by the tick of the long case clock and the heavy scent of burning peat. Fine cobwebs criss-crossed the red deer’s antlers, overlooked by a hasty housemaid, and a mustiness rose from the horsehair settle. She looked up at the glorious light which flooded from the raised glass roof-light, catching floating dust motes in its path. “Where shall we start?” Theo called across to her, and she smiled over her shoulder at him, privately conjuring up a vision of the hall in a pale sunlit yellow with bowls full of flowers from the garden she intended to nurture.
Her resolve grew as they toured the house. Little had been done since Theo’s father had established his household there half a century ago, and he, she surmised, had valued things for durability, not style. There was so much she could do, but for now, she politely acknowledged and admired, conscious of Theo’s anxiety and his desire that she would be pleased. “I suppose it’s all a bit old-fashioned,” he admitted, looking about him in consternation, and she smiled, saying nothing.
From the dining room there was a wide, sweeping view where the blue hills of the next island rose beyond the bay, and she went across to look out of the window. “Oh, exquisite!” Below her she heard male laughter and, glancing down, she saw the factor’s sons on the path below. The younger one dropped his head when they saw her, but the older one raised a hand in a friendly salute. Something told her that their laughter was connected with herself, and she turned aside, the salute unacknowledged. Then her eye was caught by a display case above the fireplace, where an unusual bird, the size of a goose, sat on an untidy nest. “What extraordinary colouring.” She went closer. A bright red eye stared out of a black head above a necklace of black-and-white feathered patches, a pattern which continued onto its body, giving the effect of dappled light reflecting off still water.
“Aha. Gavia immer, my prize.” Theo came and stood beside her, his hands in his pockets. “I got him just off the headland to the east, many years ago. But the display is contrived, I confess; they don’t breed here.” He guided her back across the hall to another room. His study.
“Good heavens!” She stood, aghast, at the threshold. It was a large room, overlooking the strand, and should have been beautiful, but was choked with desks, bookcases, and cabinets, and on every surface stood stiff, lifeless birds, arranged in varying poses, their eyes dull and unfocussed, and their very stillness was numbing. In other wall-mounted cases, the scientific intent was more obvious, and the displays more brutal. Wings, which carried light bodies on soft breezes, had been severed, splayed and pinned to show the mechanics of flight; tail fans, designed for balance and courtship, had been treated likewise. Their dusty staleness gave an odd atmosphere to the room, and again she felt under a silent scrutiny.
She glanced at Theo as he examined a parcel on his desk and thought how strange it was to destroy wild creatures only to fix them again indoors in a semblance of life— Then she saw an easel beside the window and went over to it, feeling more comfortable with the painter than the collector. She picked up a half-finished sketch which, at first glance, seemed to show a young girl, but on closer inspection she saw that it was a boy, a naked youth, graceful and slim, water glistening on his back as he emerged from a rock pool. “A masterpiece in progress, Theo?”
He looked up and frowned slightly. “Hardly,” he said, coming over to join her. “A mere scribble. I shan’t finish it.” And he took it up, glanced at it, then tucked it into a pile of old canvasses, burying it from sight.
The following days passed in a pleasant idleness as Beatrice explored her husband’s refuge and found everything delightful. The house, of course, was impossibly old-fashioned and could be made so much brighter with a light tone of paint and the banishment of heavy oak furniture to attics or outbuildings. But for now she kept such thoughts to herself— After years of frugality at home, spending Theo’s money was something she was cautious about, despite the carte blanche he had given her to order whatever she wanted, and change whatever needed changing. “Except in my study, of course,” he had added hastily, and she had laughed at his expression.
About a week after their arrival, she had awoken as the early morning light shafted through her window, and yawned self-indulgently before opening her eyes, resting her arms in an arc above her head. She lay a moment listening to the gulls, then slid a hand across the bed, but Theo was gone, long gone,
the sheets grown cold. She rolled over, sweeping her hair aside, to look where his head had dented the pillow beside her, wondering again where he went these early mornings. She had seen him once returning across the strand and had chastised him for not waking her to join him. “I often rise early up here,” he had said, and given her his wistful smile as he bent to kiss her. “But that’s no reason to rob you of sleep.”
She threw back the covers and went across the room to the little turret which gave her views in three directions, resting her hand on the wall. Theo was a perplexing man. Here, where they were thrown back on each other’s company, and without the structure of city life, she realised how little she knew him. He had seemed elated upon arrival, delighted to be here, and she had watched him walk down to the foreshore and then linger, talking to the factor’s son.
But she had become aware of his moods here. His silences.
Yesterday they had strolled along the shoreline, hand in hand at first, then walking side by side, stepping between clumps of pink sea thrift and hummocks of coarse grass. “Earnshaw wants us to go across and have dinner with them, but I put him off. Do you mind?”
“Not if you don’t care to go.”
“I don’t, not at the moment— It’s a bit of a trek, and we’d have to stay one night at least, although they’d expect us for longer, and it’ll all get immured in politics.”
“Politics! Up here?”
He had groaned, giving her a hand over the slippery rocks. “You’ve no idea. Century-old disputes over land, and I didn’t come up here to get dragged back into the debate.”
