by Lin Anderson
His secret desire, which only now did McNab admit to, had been to coax Rhona MacLeod back into his bed tonight – a forlorn hope.
I’m a sad bastard too.
He was used to Glasgow fogs, although since the city had been smoke free, they didn’t taste the same, or so he’d been told. Car fumes now, rather than coal dust. Whatever its make-up, a Glasgow fog didn’t freak him the way that this mist did.
He suddenly recalled an old horror movie he’d watched about a little Oregon seaside town. Isolated in an old lighthouse, doing a late-night radio show, the presenter had watched a fog roll in below, bringing evil with it.
I’d rather have the wind.
He could still taste the whisky on his tongue. A Highland Park, Magnus Pirie’s favourite. He might order another and take it up with him. Once back on his home turf, the craving would ease, he assured himself. He’d get back into his routine. The press-ups, the cold showers, the sex.
If Freya will have me.
The story he’d just heard from Mike Jones presented itself once again, despite his best efforts to forget it. Still, the guy had come clean before they’d found him on the sex offenders’ register. According to him, it hadn’t been kiddie fiddling, just an affair with one of his fifteen-year-old pupils. Fifteen, sixteen, who could tell the difference? McNab swore under his breath. Who was he to judge after Iona?
She wasn’t fifteen.
But she might have been. He’d never checked. Just celebrated his promotion to DI with a pretty nineteen-year-old who’d thrown herself at him, after Dr MacLeod had turned him down.
Thinking back to then, he could of course blame the booze. Another reason why he should lay off the whisky.
An image of Inga Sinclair suddenly presented itself, the earnest wee face telling him how she and her gang would find the skull, and he found himself deeply troubled by the thought of the girl visiting the schoolhouse. Even more so by the idea that Mike Jones had been sketching her. When challenged on that, he’d vehemently denied it. Apparently he’d just drawn a girl’s face that turned out to look like Inga.
Aye, fucking right!
The bile rose in his throat again.
McNab turned from the wall, his mind now made up. He would have that second double, then head for bed. Tomorrow he would be off this fucking island, and back where he belonged.
The mist had thickened, the neighbouring harbour no longer visible. McNab reached out, feeling his way along the wall, the concrete underfoot slippy with water droplets and sea slime.
Somewhere out there a fog horn sounded, like a long blast of pain.
McNab halted, the skin on his neck suddenly prickling.
Whoever came on him from behind must have been waiting there all along, biding his time. McNab felt the sudden impact of a fist on the back of his head. Stunned, he staggered against the wall, reaching out for a handhold to prevent himself falling to his knees.
Before he could collect his wits, a second blow landed square between his shoulders.
McNab swung round, thrashing blindly into the mist at his ghost attacker. His fists met nothing and no one.
He heard the muffled sound of retreating footsteps and a shouted, ‘Fuck off back to Glasgow, filth!’ Then silence.
McNab leaned over the wall, his head swimming, the nausea taking over.
Below, the sea swallowed his watery vomit and came back for more.
Get back inside.
Out here in this mist he was a sitting duck, should his assailant – or assailants – take another shot at him.
He pulled himself upright and moved towards the door, but not quickly enough.
Never turn your back.
The full weight of a heavy male body slammed into him, propelling him against the wall. There were no fists this time. McNab’s stomach hit the sharp edge of the top layer of stones, winding him. He bent over the wall, gasping, trying to draw air into his lungs, the sea spray flying up to meet him.
McNab now knew what was planned, but could do little to prevent it. Almost immediately, his feet were swept from under him. Up and over. That was the plan. The Glasgow cop who forgot that the mean streets existed everywhere. Who forgot to watch his back. The swiftness of the action saw him balance there a moment, then he was over and scrabbling madly for a handhold to prevent his descent.
No chance.
Seconds later he hit the water.
The tentacles of seaweed reached out for him, binding his flailing arms. He shouted as he briefly surfaced, but his voice was drowned as the fog horn repeated its mournful warning call.
27
PC Tulloch dropped her at the road end. Walking through the mist to the cottage didn’t bother Rhona, the sandy track being clearly visible under her feet, the porch light she’d learned to leave on, her guide.
Mike’s pickup was already parked outside the schoolhouse, a light shining in the big room.
Rhona contemplated knocking and asking to speak to him. After the incident in the pub, he’d confessed to an indiscretion with a pupil who was underage, which had resulted in his dismissal from his job and his flight north to Sanday. Rhona had accepted that part of the story. It was the reason he’d given for the existence of the drawing that she’d found difficult to believe. According to Mike, he’d imagined a face and sketched it. He’d never seen Inga before she’d knocked on his back door.
Yet what he’d created was a portrait of the child.
As she hesitated, the light in the schoolhouse went out, deciding for her.
I’m going home tomorrow, she reminded herself. After I collect a sample of shell sand. My job here is over.
The thought both pleased her and made her a little sad. There was something to be said about living remotely. Life did seem simpler, and more real.
But bad things happen everywhere.
The almost brawl in the pub had confirmed that. The guy at the bar hadn’t been the only one who’d wished Mike Jones ill tonight. Was that because they were aware of his past before the police had even checked him out, or was it something else?
People came here to hide from the world. People like Mike Jones. But there was nowhere to hide in a community this size. Nowhere at all.
She headed along the track. There was still no wind and the fine droplets of mist were a soft curtain against her face. She couldn’t see the sea, but she could hear it, beating the shore.
Reaching the front door, she went for the key, strategically placed under a stone.
Taking off her boots in the porch, she welcomed the draught of warm air that met her when she opened the inner door. The place was just as she’d left it and yet …
Rhona sniffed the air, the way she did when first stepping onto a crime scene. The scent of diesel was faint but definitely there. As though someone with oily hands had been in the room.
Her first thought was that Derek had visited while she was out. But he knew she was getting a lift back from the community centre with the rest of the team. He’d even joked about having a night off from police work.
A thought occurred, sending her out and round the back of the cottage with her torch. Maybe her visitor hadn’t come by road. Maybe they’d come by boat.
The grass directly behind the cottage was kept short and there was a washing line strung between a stone-built turret and the house. There were numerous similar flagstone edifices along this northern section of the coast. Derek had told her he believed they were used by fishermen to mark their location, or by the wives to hoist signals to bring them ashore.
After the cut grass were the dunes, low and rolling, the grass spikey and much longer than the back lawn. It only took a few minutes for her to accept that, in the mist, it was impossible to see what she sought. If someone had come ashore here, then they would have trampled the grass, and the mark of the bow of the boat where they dragged it ashore would be visible in the sand.
Rhona cursed now at the mist and the darkness. It would have to wait until morning.
She
retreated inside and made a point of locking the door.
She was used to living alone and in truth she preferred it that way. Her relationship with Sean, on and off, functioned better when he wasn’t a permanent feature in the flat.
But tonight she would have preferred company, and wished Chrissy was still here. She would have welcomed her take on all of this. What had happened, both in the bar and here at the cottage? Her forensic assistant had a knack of seeing things for what they truly were, and for saying so outright.
Rhona prepared for bed, realizing that the silence was all encompassing and that she missed the sound of the wind. As she shut the curtains, she caught a light on again in the schoolhouse and suspected Mike had doused it on hearing her arrive, hoping she wouldn’t do what she’d intended and knock on his door.
As she pulled the curtain to, she saw something through the mist. A ghostly light she realized was the lighthouse. Somewhere a fog horn sounded a muffled warning. This area of Sanday had seen countless shipwrecks before a lighthouse had finally been built on Start Point. According to Derek, Sanday folk hadn’t pillaged the cargo and endangered the survivors such as in the tales of Cornish wrecks. The tradition of the island had been to save the men and their cargoes, for which they were well rewarded by the companies whose ships had gone aground.
Rhona slipped under the duvet.
If the fog didn’t lift, the likelihood would be that she’d leave tomorrow by the teatime ferry to Kirkwall. There was little point in asking the helicopter to chance a landing in this soup when she could make her way by sea. Once in Kirkwall she could await a normal service flight south.
She thought about McNab and hoped that he’d forsaken the bar and gone to bed. It was obvious all was not well between him and Freya, thus his desire to come on what he thought would be a jolly. She smiled at her memory of his expression on seeing the empty landscape. Having been brought up on Skye, places like this didn’t faze her. Chrissy was impervious to whatever environment you put her in. McNab, on the other hand, was an urban warrior, ill at ease outside the city limits.
Her phone buzzed, startling her. There was a signal inside the cottage, precocious and entirely dependent on the time of day and the weather. It seemed the fog was better than the wind.
She glanced at the screen and answered.
‘Hi.’
There was a pause as though the caller hadn’t expected a response.
‘How are things in the north?’
‘How are things in Paris?’
‘I’m home,’ Sean said. ‘Missing you.’
‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ she said, hearing the sad note in his voice. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Have you?’ he countered.
‘Some white wine in the local hotel.’
‘Never red.’
‘The food was great. As good as yours,’ she countered.
‘I’ll cook for you tomorrow?’ A question, not a statement.
‘I’d like that,’ Rhona said.
‘The meal might require red wine to compliment it?’
‘Okay,’ Rhona conceded.
‘Until tomorrow, then?’
‘Until tomorrow.’
She rang off wishing Sean was here beside her.
The banging on the door had become one with her dream, of spectres rising from the sea, covered by the mist in their approach to the island.
Rhona sat up, wondering what time it was. At this time of year, Sanday was dark well into the morning, and she wondered if she’d slept in. Glancing at her watch, she found it was only an hour after she’d gone to bed.
Rising, she shouted, ‘I’m coming.’
She had no idea what she expected to find when she opened the door, but it hadn’t been a dripping McNab being held up by Derek Muir.
‘What—’ Rhona didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence.
Derek propelled McNab into the room and deposited him on the couch.
‘I’ll strip him. Bring blankets. A duvet, anything to get him warm.’
Ten minutes later, McNab was encased in the duvet from Chrissy’s bed, a hot-water bottle tucked inside.
‘What happened?’ Rhona finally said.
‘He went over the wall behind the bar.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘We won’t know until he can tell us. Tor saw him go outside and eventually went looking for him. God knows how he spotted him among the seaweed at the foot of the sea wall. They brought him up and called me. I thought it better to bring him here. If someone with access to the hotel has got it in for him …’ He tailed off.
McNab was shivering. At regular intervals, a raft of shudders swept through him.
‘We should get him into bed.’
‘Chrissy’s room,’ Rhona said.
‘Is it warm in there?’
‘I’ve kept the stove stoked, the radiators are hot.’
Together they hitched McNab up, who was acting like a drunk man.
‘How much did he have to drink?’
‘I don’t think it’s alcohol. I think he’s approaching hypothermia.’
Fifteen minutes later, they had McNab tucked into bed. It was obvious from his colour that the warmth was penetrating. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him, if you want to head home,’ Rhona offered.
‘I’m happy to take the couch, if you want to get some sleep,’ Derek offered.
‘You’ve done enough already,’ Rhona said.
‘I feel responsible.’
‘How can you be responsible?’
‘This is my island. We did this to him.’
‘That’s like saying that everything bad that happens in Glasgow is my fault,’ Rhona countered.
‘There are six hundred people here; you have, what, a million?’
‘Not any more,’ Rhona said. ‘In the heydays. You go home. I’ll look after his lordship.’
As she let him out, Rhona said, ‘Have you any idea who might have done this to McNab?’
‘Plenty of ideas, but no proof,’ Derek told her.
Dawn didn’t break at this time of year on Sanday, it eased its way in, and after the time most people needed to rise. It was still pitch black outside when Rhona showered and went into the kitchen. On her way she checked on McNab. He was sleeping peacefully, his bristled face a much improved colour from the stagnant look of his arrival the previous night.
Gazing on him, Rhona had a moment of madness, remembering the odd occasion they had come together sexually, and she’d wakened to find McNab beside her, looking like that. It was usually followed by his eyes opening and some pointed remark which she immediately had to rebut. Rhona wondered if that was what it had been like with Freya. The jokes covering his real feelings, only getting so close and no further.
A bit like myself.
Her plan for today, McNab not included, had been to collect shell sand and investigate the remains of the radar station, including the old mortuary. She hadn’t changed her mind.
McNab was renowned for pissing folk off and getting into trouble for it. Rhona had no idea what had happened after she’d left the bar, but if he’d hit the whisky? There were stories of drunks tipping over the back wall into the sea. In Glasgow he could stagger home. Here, on Sanday, he may well have crossed a wall, rather than a busy street, and ended up in the water.
She began a fry-up, trying to be like Chrissy, not sure she was succeeding.
I did it in Skye, I can do it here.
She fried bacon and slice sausage and potato scones and kept them warm in the oven. As she started on the eggs, McNab appeared.
He sniffed the air. ‘Tell me you have baked beans.’
‘You’re alive,’ she said.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘And hungry.’
Rhona shovelled the fry-up onto his plate and added an egg. ‘No beans,’ she said.
‘If Chrissy had still been here.’
‘Well, she isn’t,’ Rhona said and served herself.
It was apparent
that McNab was not about to enlighten her on last night before he filled his stomach. They ate in companionable silence. Rhona had already set up the coffee machine, putting in a few extra spoonfuls to give McNab his required caffeine fix. He accepted the cup of thick black coffee with a grateful smile.
‘So,’ she said, when he’d drunk it and had a refill, ‘what happened exactly?’
‘I went outside and someone jumped me in the mist, and tipped me over the wall into the water.’
‘Any idea who?’
‘None.’
The stubborn set to his mouth suggested that even if he had, he wasn’t planning on telling her.
‘Well, if someone has a grudge, it’s just as well you’re heading home today.’
‘Oh no I’m not,’ McNab said.
‘But I thought …’
‘Not without finding the bastard who tried to kill me.’
‘Is that not Ivan’s job?’ she tried.
‘Some bastard punched me,’ he rubbed the back of his head, ‘then tried to drown me. Big mistake. And not one for smiling PC Tulloch to remedy.’
‘DI Flett may not agree.’
‘He’s back in Kirkwall, I’m here.’ He changed the subject. ‘What about your plans?’
‘I have some forensic work to finish, then I’m heading back to Glasgow.’
McNab glanced at the window. ‘You only get off this island if there’s no mist and no wind.’
‘That’s by plane. If it’s misty the ferry still goes,’ she challenged him.
‘Godforsaken place.’
‘I like it.’
‘But you were brought up in Skye, which explains everything.’
Rhona left him there, plotting his revenge, and went to check the tide clock. It seemed low tide was at ten this morning. She got dressed in her outer gear and walking boots and headed out. The mist hadn’t completely dispersed, but it had definitely thinned, probably aided by a faint breeze that stirred the grass.
Rhona had said nothing to McNab about her suspicions that someone had been in the cottage in her absence. He was already fizzing about the attack on him, plus Mike Jones’s confession, which he’d muttered on about during his third cup of coffee. He had serious concerns about Inga Sinclair visiting the schoolhouse and had made that pretty plain.
