Naming the Bones

by Louise Welsh

  She reached out her hand to touch his face again and he said, ‘Don’t, I need to concentrate on the road.’

  ‘They never found his body. As long as it was missing, there was a chance he was still alive somewhere.’ Christie sighed. ‘I wouldn’t mind if he came back drowned.’

  Murray imagined Archie striding towards them through the blackness, his body bloated and bloody, his ragged clothes strung about with seaweed.

  He asked, ‘Did Fergus do away with Bobby?’

  ‘No.’ In all the long evening it was the first time she’d sounded shocked. ‘Fergus is an exploiter of women, but he’s not a murderer. Bobby was an old man who had a heart attack.’

  ‘He was a drain on resources. Fergus looked after him, gave him a flat and who knows what else.’

  Christie was back in this world. She said, ‘I’d been sending the old fool money for years. Giving in to bribery doesn’t incriminate you in murder. Bobby contacted Fergus after he moved back up to Scotland. There was a piece in the newspaper referring to Professor Baine and Bobby came across it. I can just picture him.’ There was something unseemly in her laughter. ‘Sitting in some horrid bar, ringing the article with a pen borrowed from the barmaid, ordering a whisky and knowing that his ship had come in.’

  ‘He was scared. He’d made a circle of protection around his bed.’

  ‘He was always scared. The day we arrived on the island he made a circle of protection around the cottage.

  Much good it did us.’

  ‘Did Archie believe in all that stuff?’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘The occult. Spells.’

  ‘Archie didn’t believe in anything much, certainly not in himself.’

  ‘He believed in poetry.’

  ‘That’s the kind of meaningless statement I’d have thought an academic would avoid.’

  Murray stole a glance at Christie. Her head was resting against the rain-streaked window, her expression hidden.

  ‘He believed in you and your child. I found a list of names among his papers in the library. He was trying to decide what to call it, wasn’t he?’

  Christie’s voice was gentle.

  ‘He talked to her. Laid his head on my belly, recited poetry, sang songs and told her his dreams. A jealous woman might have grown bitter, but I understood. Archie had never had anything much to look forward to before. This baby was to be all the Christmases he never had.’ She sighed. ‘It was more than that. He thought the child would save him.

  The reality was rather different.’

  ‘And Fergus?’

  ‘He worshipped Fergus.’

  ‘Was he worthy of Archie’s faith?’

  Christie lifted her head from the glass and straightened her spine against the passenger seat. Her profile looked brittle.

  ‘Neither Fergus nor the child turned out to be Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think Professor Baine bears more of a resemblance to Judas Iscariot.’

  Christie snorted.

  ‘Archie would have hated that kind of melodrama.’

  Murray kept his tone mild, though Christie’s words had hit their mark.

  ‘If Fergus can supply you with the means to kill yourself, he could do the same for Bobby.’

  ‘That was one of Fergus’s few truly altruistic gestures.’ Christie’s voice was a monotone and it was hard to tell if she was being sincere or sarcastic. ‘He went to Switzerland with his mother. He’d promised to make sure she didn’t suffer too horribly at the end. I think it was a transformative experience. He came back convinced of the individual’s right to die.’

  Murray remembered the death of the professor’s mother. Fergus had been absent from the university for an appropriate period, but perhaps it was unsurprising that no mention had been made of trips to Swiss clinics. He recalled Baine’s stoicism, his dignified receipt of condolence, and the new house that had followed. Rachel had moved in soon after.

  ‘He isn’t here with you tonight.’

  ‘Fergus doesn’t know about the dig.’

  ‘And you didn’t enlighten him?’

  ‘He would exhume her body, but he wouldn’t give it to me. The one thing I’m worried about is the possibility he did it years ago, but I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Fergus has a talent for forgetting. All sensationalists do. The rest of us sustain ourselves on memories and police ourselves with obligations. Men like Fergus can set these things aside. Oh, he can make a plan and see it through, you only need to look at his career to know that. But Fergus lives largely in the moment. As long as he’s getting his own way, he forgets. He doesn’t have a conscience to remind him.’

  Murray thought about Rachel. His sadness was shot through with guilt. He’d believed hers the guiding hand, but could he have unwittingly exploited her, too dazzled by her zest for sex to interrogate her motives? Had he been like Fergus, unquestioning as long as he was getting his own way? He wondered what she had done to herself, and if Fergus was taking good care of her.

  The car heater was on full blast, but the windscreen was fogging. Murray reached forward and wiped it with his palm. The makeshift road seemed to be getting narrower and he suspected that before long they would have to abandon the car and make their way on foot. He asked, ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Almost there.’ Christie didn’t seem to be looking, but her voice was sure. ‘We should see the first of the limeworkers’ cottages in a moment. Be careful, the ground will be softer here.’

  Murray dropped their speed to crawl. They drove on in silence. Soon he saw a shape up ahead, blacker than the darkness that surrounded them. A ruined cottage came into focus, the shadowy forms of the derelict village behind it. He stopped the car, turned off the engine and pulled on the handbrake. ‘What now?’

  ‘Can you drive any further?’

  Murray opened his door. Outside it sounded the way he supposed a rainforest removed of wildlife might, the steady slap and drip of rain against leaves and puddles, accompanied by the white-noise hiss of the downpour. He looked at the ground in the glow of the interior light. Water was pooling into miniature streams and gullies, the earth turning to sludge.

  ‘I don’t think so. We’re taking a chance as it is.’

  Christie leaned into the glove compartment and handed him a rubberised torch. He felt the weight of it in his hand and thought what a good weapon it would make.

  ‘It won’t take long.’ He saw her profile in silhouette, the set of her jaw, her half-open lips. ‘Just think of the poems and forget everything else.’

  She pulled up the hood of her jacket, then opened the door and stepped into the dark. Murray jogged round to the boot of the car and took out the spade they’d stashed there earlier. He had to shout to make himself heard.

  ‘Are you sure you can manage?’

  Christie wrestled her walking stick from the car, then linked her free arm through his. ‘If I can lean on you.’ She pointed her stick straight ahead. ‘It’s this way.’

  Murray clicked on the torch, aiming its beam at the path’s greasy surface. Christie skidded and he hauled her to her feet.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s keep moving.’

  But Murray could feel her already flagging. He put his arm around Christie’s waist, holding her close. She was so light her bones might have been hollow. But still her body weighed on him. Murray swung the shovel, using it like a staff. Hill-walking had taught him that when weather and conditions conspired against you, the trick was to think of nothing, not the distance that remained, nor what would follow once you reached home, nothing but the next step, then the one after and the one after that.

  They were almost in the heart of the tiny hamlet now. The trees had grown denser, but instead of sheltering them from the rain they seemed to add to its force, shedding their own hoarded load as they passed. Murray kept the torch aimed at the treacherous ground beneath their feet, but he could feel the sta
res of empty windows and gaping doors on either side. Christie tugged his arm and pointed towards one of the houses. She said something that was carried away by the sound of the rain. Murray swung the torch in the direction she’d indicated. An abandoned cottage glared at him.

  ‘There?’

  She nodded and they turned their uneasy progress towards it, Murray half-dragging, half-carrying Christie.

  ‘Careful.’ She yanked on his arm again. ‘Keep to the path.’

  He shone the beam across the ground and saw that instead of leading them straight to the cottage, the mud track curved around a patch of green. He corrected his course, swearing softly under his breath, following the trail, thinking they must look like Hansel and Gretel, grown up and evil, visiting old haunts.

  The cottage’s doorway was clumped about with long grass. He hauled Christie over it and pulled her inside. Like the rest of the abandoned village, the cottage had lost its roof, so there was no real shelter from the rain within its bounds, but the stone walls seemed to deaden the sound a little. Christie propped herself against one of them. Murray thought she looked bad, but didn’t pause to ask her how she felt.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘There, just outside, to the left of the door. It’s shaped like a heart.’

  Murray gripped the shovel tighter and went back through the opening. He found the marker easily. He could see what Christie meant. The stone was flat on top, pointed at one end and slightly bifurcated at the other. The whimsy disgusted him.

  He passed the torch to Christie. ‘Here, aim where I dig.’ Then he took the shovel and prised it beneath the marker. He felt the stone shift and slid the shovel further in. The earth’s grip slackened again. The stone was loose now, but it had the hidden mass of an iceberg and he couldn’t get enough leverage to force it free of its socket. Murray cursed himself and Christie for not having had the foresight to pack a pair of rubber gloves. He squatted down on the ground and wobbled the half-excavated boulder with his bare hands. He could feel the grave-dirt on his flesh, creeping beneath his fingernails. He found a stick and used it to scrape away the mud, probing the ground like an ape hunting for termites. Finally he wedged his hands down the sides of the hollow and wrenched the stone free. The hole started to fill with water.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  Murray lifted the shovel and began digging. He dug in the same way he would approach a desperate walk, taking it one step, one spade-full, at a time. The trees in the valley creaked and shivered with the weight of the rain and the cramping coldness of the night.

  In Murray’s mind, he was alone in the small bedroom he shared with Jack. The room was in darkness, save for the light from his desk lamp pooling on the page before him. He felt his eyes droop, then the gentle weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Time to stop now, son. Slow and steady wins the race.’

  The shovel struck against something solid.

  He took the torch from Christie and shone it into the hole. He could see nothing in its depths except the brown water rising from beneath, turning the mud to sludge. Murray got back down on his hands and knees, and stretched into the swelling pool. Whatever it was was too far down for him to reach.

  ‘Fuck.’

  He lay flat on his belly in the mud and tried again. This time he made contact. His fingers were numb and he couldn’t tell if they were brushing against stone or metal, but the surface of the object was smooth, whatever it was set too deep for Murray to get a proper grip. He got to his knees and scrabbled around in the dirt again until he could find his stick, then stretched back into the pool and tried to hollow it free. The stick broke. He cursed, got to his feet and set-to with the spade, attacking the sides of the hole, swearing as this new excavation tumbled earth back into the pit. Finally it was wide enough. He put his glasses in his pocket then eased himself down into the grave. The loamy scent that had been in his nostrils all through the digging seemed to slide down into his throat. He prised the shovel beneath the object, hoping to God he’d have enough purchase to haul himself out, knowing that should the walls collapse in on him Christie would be unable to pull him free. Murray felt the box move. He squatted down in the dirt and gripped the smooth square thing with his dead fingers. He grunted and pulled, feeling all the while that the struggle was two-sided and whatever lay below wanted to drag him down there with it. Once, the box slipped from his grasp and he feared it had broken and he would see the child’s face staring up at him, squashed and leathered, like the bog folk Heaney had written about. But then, with a last sucking slurp that threatened to tug him down, the earth relinquished its dubious prize. Murray leant over the box, hands on thighs, gasping for breath.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  He gripped the box in both hands, took a deep breath, and heaved it up onto the surface. He then hauled himself over the mud-slathering sides of the hole after it.

  It was more of a trunk than a box. Larger than he’d expected, but light for all the trouble it had caused him, and obscene in its ordinariness. Still on his knees, Murray turned to face Christie. His hair was plastered to his head, his hands and body coated in mud too clotted for the rain to wash away. His voice sounded old and rusty.

  ‘Please, don’t open it until I get you back to your cottage.’

  Christie pursed her lips, like a woman trying not to laugh. She staggered from the doorway and put a hand on his shoulder. For an awful moment he thought she might kiss him, but she merely stood there, staring down at the makeshift coffin.

  ‘Thank you.’ The rain was slackening and Murray could hear her breath, harsh and ragged. ‘We should go.’ She danced the torch beam around the site of the exhumation, searching like a seasoned detective for evidence of their visit. ‘Perhaps you should fill that in, so no one wonders what’s been going on.’

  Murray took his glasses from his pocket and held them under the rain, trying to wash the lenses free of the spangles of mud which decorated them. He replaced them, lifted the spade and started to shovel the earth back into the grave. Their visit would still be evident to anyone who cared to look, but he had lost all will to argue. He had no idea of how long they had been there, but the light was changing, the dawn creeping towards them much sooner than he would have expected. He wiped the mud from his watch – 02:54 – but even as he checked the time, Murray heard the grumble of an engine and realised that the sweep of light was no premature daybreak. He heard Christie’s gasp and saw her sickened expression a moment before he was blinded by the full beam of a car’s headlights.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  MURRAY THREW THE shovel to one side and put his hands up in the air. It was a ridiculous gesture born of the American cop shows he and Jack had been addicted to as boys, and he dropped them almost immediately. He shaded his eyes, squinting to see who had interrupted them, but the car’s full beams were still aiming at them from the mud track, and he could make out nothing beyond a blur of smur and bright light. The car door slammed.

  ‘You should have gone home, Murray.’

  Fergus Baine’s voice was full of regret.

  ‘You’re right as usual, Fergus.’

  ‘This is between Christie and me. The best thing you can do is walk away and forget it ever happened.’

  Christie gripped his elbow. She whispered, ‘Don’t leave me alone with him.’ It was more of an order than a plea, but he could hear the fear in her voice.

  ‘I’ll go, but I’m taking her with me.’

  ‘Fine. Did you find it?’

  Fergus had stepped in front of the lights. His shadow stretched towards them, tall and thin. He’d abandoned his Barbour jacket for a long raincoat which fell in skirted folds to his ankles, giving him the outline of a Victorian hunter.

  Christie’s voice was shrill.

  ‘You can’t take her from me, Fergus.’

  The professor might have been at an overcrowded cocktail party where the hubbub required raised voices. His tones carried sleek and
smooth across the grassy divide.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Christina.’

  Murray shouted, ‘What happened to Rachel?’

  ‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself? She’s in the car.’

  He leapt forward, but Christie had him by the arm, her grip tighter than he would have thought possible. She hissed, ‘Don’t. He’s lying.’

  Murray shouted, ‘Rachel!’ But there was no reply. It would have been an easy thing to shake Christie free, but he stalled, hesitating, beside her.

  ‘She’s there, I promise you.’ Fergus advanced slowly towards them, his arms open, like a TV evangelist ready to embrace the world. ‘Let the boy go, Christie. It’s nothing to do with him.’

  Murray said, ‘If you’ve hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you.’

  Fergus laughed.

  ‘It’s me she loves, Murray, me she married. You were just a diversion. Look at you, crawling around in the mud on an old witch’s errand. You’re not really Rachel’s type.’

  Christie kept her hand locked on Murray’s elbow and hauled herself in front of him.

  ‘She prefers old men who have to watch because they can’t manage it themselves any more.’

  ‘Your insults are almost as clichéd as your books.’

  Murray heard Christie draw in a deep breath and then another.

  ‘We’re old friends, Fergus. Can’t we come to some arrangement?’

  ‘Of course.’ The professor had taken another slow step forward.

  He was like a hunter, right enough, thought Murray. One that wanted to take his prey alive, or maybe simply get close enough to make certain his aim was true.