Wild Fire

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘I don’t think it was the kids who started that.’ Magnie stared bleakly ahead. ‘I think it was Emma. I’ve been over and over it in my head. I didn’t want to believe it. Not then and not since. I told myself she wouldn’t do something like that. Not to a boy like Christopher. That I’d got it all wrong. I usually get things wrong. But I was sitting next to her and I heard her. It was a whisper at first, then she got louder, until some lads standing close to us joined in. “Hangman, hangman.” And once the others started shouting too, she stopped speaking and just watched. Pleased, as if it was what she had wanted all the time. That hate spreading like a wild fire on the hill.’ A pause. ‘It was as if she was drunk on the power.’

  Willow didn’t speak for a moment. She could see why Magnie hadn’t told her before. He’d persuaded himself that Emma was his ideal woman and he’d wanted to preserve the image, especially after her death. Now he was admitting that he hadn’t really known her at all. The notion that she’d had, looking at the photo of Emma in the Hesti kitchen, grew. Other ideas clicked into place. For the first time, she had a sense of the real Emma.

  ‘There’s something else.’ Magnie interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Yes?’ She was still trying to process the possibilities and had to pull her attention back to this room.

  ‘My mother was there that night.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Willow tried to imagine Margaret Riddell, angry at the world, at a beach party full of rowdy, drunken kids.

  ‘She must have been on duty to lock up the community hall. She’d have seen the fire and heard the noise. Somehow she got herself to the top of the bank, because when I turned round I saw her looking down on us.’ Magnie closed his eyes and Willow thought he was imagining the scene.

  ‘Was she there when Emma started the chanting?’

  ‘I think she must have been. But she’d gone by the time I came back after taking the Fleming boy home.’

  There was a silence. From far in the distance came the sound of children’s voices. The school day must have ended. Soon Perez would be back at Hesti with Daniel. Willow had to talk to him. She knew now why Christopher had run away, but she still had no idea where the boy was. It was more important than ever to find him.

  ‘Did you and your mother ever talk about what happened that night on the beach?’

  ‘No,’ Magnie said. ‘She never mentioned it, and I wasn’t going to bring it up. It wasn’t something I was proud of.’ A pause. ‘I wanted to forget it had ever happened.’

  ‘You did the right thing. Phoning me.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I should have done it earlier.’ He walked with Willow to the front door. In the neighbouring house, Lottie was still staring out of her window.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Christopher had taken matches from the kitchen before leaving in the morning. He knew his mother’s hiding place. She put everything secret in a black jar at the back of the cupboard where she kept the tea and the coffee. He had to stand on the bench to reach it. He’d done that while she was talking to Dad about his work, before walking them to school. He wasn’t sure why he needed the matches, but it made him feel better to know they were there, wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag at the bottom of his lunch box. They provided comfort, like the reruns of CSI that he watched on Netflix. Fire made him feel better. The possibility of fire was a reassurance.

  The first lesson was maths. Usually he enjoyed maths, because he found it easy, and he liked being better at it than everyone else in the class. Often he could work out the answer before Mr Johnson. Today he found it hard to concentrate. Then there was music. They were practising the songs they’d sing at the leavers’ assembly. He’d be leaving Deltaness school at the end of the summer too. He’d have to go in the bus to the Junior High School in Brae. That would mean getting up much earlier, and there would be other kids, new teachers. It would be a lot to get used to. He tried not to think about it.

  After break it was PE. He hated PE and that was why he decided break was the best time to run away. He could have left it until later in the day, but this way he’d miss the horror of changing, of being outside on the field, of having to run.

  When the bell went for playtime, Christopher collected his bag and lunch box before going outside. Sam Moncrieff noticed but didn’t say anything. Sam was OK when they met outside school. Sometimes they played computer games together, built Lego. But in school he was different and never acknowledged any kind of friendship. Christopher didn’t waste time worrying about that and, anyway, today Sam ignoring him worked in his favour.

  During break, Christopher leaned against the school wall and watched the others chasing about. That was what he usually did. Sometimes he brought a book to read, but generally he just watched. When there were only a couple of minutes to go before the end of playtime, he moved round the corner to a narrow space, between the school and the fence that separated the early-years kids’ yard from that of the older ones. He crouched down, so nobody could see him, and felt his heart racing a bit. He couldn’t work out if he was nervous or excited. The bell went and everyone ran in, but nobody seemed to realize that he was missing. The gate into the road was fastened with a padlock during school time, but it wasn’t very high and he jumped over it easily, even carrying his bags.

  It wasn’t a long walk to where he was going, but he knew nobody should see him, so he took a circuitous route, avoiding the shop, where old people often gathered to talk. The sun was shining and Christopher felt very hot. He took off his T-shirt and put it in his bag. If his mother knew what he’d done, she’d be annoyed, but the plan was that nobody would see him, at least for a while, so she’d never get to know. He was tempted to take his bottle of water from his bag to have a drink, but knew he’d be glad of it later in the day.

  When he arrived at his destination, the door was open, as he’d known it would be. This was a good place to wait. By now he felt very tired. He’d been up all night, worrying that he was doing the right thing. He’d thought it had been clever to make the phone call, using the landline in his mother’s workshop, so nobody in the family would hear. In the middle of the night it had seemed like a mistake. He thought it was too late to change his mind now and, in the end, he curled up in a corner and went to sleep.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Willow left Magnie’s house and drove straight to the Moncrieff place. She knocked at the door, but there was no response and everywhere was locked, even the garage. She stood and listened, but had no sense that anyone was inside. She walked to the back of the house; a large garden was surrounded by a stone wall and stunted sycamores. It was laid to grass, with a full-sized football net at one end and a swing at the other. Still no sign of life. Beyond the wall there was a field of oats.

  She stood for a moment and considered her options. Belle should be home by now with Sam and Kate. Her car wasn’t parked outside the house, so perhaps she’d taken them out to play with a friend or to collect the older children. Willow’s suspicions were based on the flimsiest of evidence. She couldn’t go to the health centre and confront Robert Moncrieff with what she’d guessed, and she certainly couldn’t put out a call for Belle and the kids. This was a time for patience.

  But they had to find Christopher. She drove back to Hesti and saw that Perez and Daniel had arrived back from the school. Helena and Daniel were in the kitchen with Sandy. Daniel stood behind his wife and held her. It was as if he was holding her upright and keeping her strong. He seemed free of all emotion now. When Willow went in, Helena looked at her, desperate for news. She shook her head to show that she had nothing for them.

  Chapter Fifty

  Perez was standing just inside the kitchen door. He watched Willow come in and saw Helena’s disappointment when there was no news about her son. Willow looked stiff and anxious, and Perez felt an overwhelming tenderness for her. An instant later, he knew he shouldn’t feel like this. Willow was so strong that she would consider the emotion presumptuous, patronizing; after all, s
he was the last woman to need a man to care for her. In this relationship, it seemed, there was nothing but confusion.

  She touched his elbow. ‘Can I have a word?’

  He followed her outside, relieved to escape the tension in the room and the parents’ pain. The courtyard was busy with people he scarcely recognized – officers and volunteers were searching the outhouses now: Helena’s studio, a smaller storeroom and the byre where Emma had been found.

  ‘I don’t want to be overheard.’ Willow walked around the house to the paved terrace where the photograph found in Christopher’s room had been taken. The white wooden loungers were still there, remnants of a more settled time.

  Except it hadn’t been settled, Perez thought. The family’s first few months in this house had been oppressive, weighed down with resentment and jealousy. He looked out to sea. A bank of cloud, so dense that it looked solid to the touch, hid the horizon. It seemed that the fog that had shrouded the islands the week before was on its way back with a vengeance.

  When they reached the boundary of the Hesti garden, Willow began talking. She confided in Perez as she’d always done, sharing her ideas about the investigation, setting aside any awkwardness. Now, it seemed, nothing mattered but the case and the missing boy. Perez listened until she’d completed the narrative.

  ‘That makes sense, but it doesn’t explain Christopher’s disappearance from school or help us find him.’ He thought Willow was the most emotionally intelligent person he’d ever known. In work, and in his private life, he too often let sympathy take over. He was a sucker for a sob story, but she was clear-eyed, insightful and without sentiment. He looked again at the sea and saw that the fog was closer now, rolling towards them, a giant individual wave.

  Suddenly he set off at a run, leaving Willow to follow more slowly behind him. As they’d reached the end of the garden he’d glimpsed the roof of the shed formed by the upturned yoal. Surely the building would make the perfect hiding place for an eleven-year-old boy. Perez imagined Christopher inside, curled up on one of the red cushions, absorbed in a book. Pushing open the door, he was already tasting the relief of finding him safe and well. But, inside, there was no sign of the child. He stood, drained after the sudden rush of adrenaline and expectation. Willow had joined him and he sensed her disappointment too, when she saw the place was empty. He walked further into the building and crouched to look more closely, at the shelves, in the corners. The fog must have covered the sun now because, even with the door open, he needed the torch on his phone to see any detail.

  ‘Christopher’s definitely been here.’

  ‘I know,’ Willow said. ‘He probably plays here all the time.’

  ‘No. Today.’ Perez lifted a wicker wastebasket onto the makeshift table where they’d found Emma’s bag. Inside was an apple core and an empty raspberry-yoghurt pot. ‘That was in his packed-lunch box. I asked Daniel.’

  ‘So where is he now?’

  ‘With the killer,’ Perez said, his voice very quiet. ‘That’s what this is about.’

  On the shore the sudden lack of light felt weird, supernatural, like an unexpected eclipse of the sun. The temperature had dropped too. Sharp edges in the landscape had blurred, and sound was muffled. Perez and Willow started to walk back towards the house. Perez thought the team must have widened their search because he was aware of movement in the fog, people no more than silhouettes shifting in and out of focus, dark shadows against the grey.

  ‘What now?’ Willow was walking beside him. The mist was damp and he could smell wet wool, wet grass.

  ‘We don’t have any proof. Nowhere near enough to make an arrest.’

  ‘But we need to find the boy.’ He could hear the desperation in her voice and thought she wasn’t so detached after all. ‘There might be fingerprints in the shed, if they met up there. That would be evidence of a kind.’

  ‘Fingerprints would be in the shed anyway, from previous occasions.’

  They’d climbed the stile onto Hesti land. She stopped for a moment. ‘I can’t believe the killer would harm Christopher.’

  But Perez thought the killer was desperate, and desperate people did crazy things. I did a crazy thing, not thinking clearly before I spoke, when you told me about the baby. Shutting off the possibility of a child of my own.

  He was trying to form the words into an apology when he was aware of a light forcing itself through the gloom. It seemed to hover at a strange angle above them, and it took him a moment to work out what it might be. At first he imagined an explosion, a fire in a small and distant aircraft. This wasn’t moving, though. It was static and grounded. ‘It’s the bonfire on the hill. The Midsummer Beacon. Someone’s set fire to it.’

  ‘Christopher!’ She was already running. ‘Who else could it be?’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Willow soon realized she couldn’t keep up with Perez. The hill was steep and three months of tiredness, disturbed sleep and lack of exercise had left her soft and unfit. Perez was used to the terrain; he’d spent his childhood helping his father with the Fair Isle hill sheep. He understood the uneven patchwork of heather, peat bank and Juncus underfoot, the patches of exposed rock and the trap of crumbling drystone dyke hidden by rush and reed. She couldn’t be as reckless as she might once have been. Now she climbed carefully, worried about tripping. She stopped every so often to catch her breath, frustrated by her lack of energy and her flabby, aching muscles. The fog grew thicker, the higher she climbed, and she would have lost her way if it weren’t for the fire blazing wild and fierce above her. She could smell it now and hear branches snapping and cracking, though she was still too far away to feel its heat.

  Eventually the slope flattened and walking was easier. She was close to the top of the ridge on a plateau that ran out towards the sea. She’d seen the cliffs from the beach below: they were steep and sheer, and water boiled at the bottom even when the weather was calm like this. The beacon had been built here simply because it was so close to the cliff edge. It would be seen from other high places all down the east coast of the islands. The mist was so dense that she couldn’t see the cliff edge, but she knew it was there. As a background to the other noises, she heard the low churning of the sea below. She leaned against a rocky outcrop, glad of a moment to rest.

  At first she thought she was alone here, stranded above the other life that continued below. There was no sign of Perez. Everything else seemed a long way off. She supposed that in Hesti, the team was still searching. She hoped Sandy was with Daniel and Helena, and imagined them in the kitchen there, closed in and safe.

  Then she saw a figure just beyond the fire, lit by the flames, but still insubstantial in the mist. Christopher. She was about to call out to him to tell him to move away from the cliff edge, when someone else emerged from the Suksetter side of the hill.

  She knew from the first glimpse that this wasn’t Perez. Even blurred by the fog, she would have recognized the detective, the shape of his body and the way he moved. It was clear, even at this distance, that this wasn’t a meeting of friends. Christopher backed away from the newcomer, apparently terrified. Perhaps this was the climax of a chase that had taken place across the hill. Willow thought the lighting of the beacon had been the boy’s cry for help, but now she watched without speaking or moving, not running to his aid. He was so close to the edge of the cliff that she worried any sudden sound might make him fall. He must be disorientated, lost, exhausted. Her silhouette was masked by the outcrop of rock behind her; she could see their outlines, moving in the firelight, silent as life-sized puppets, but they couldn’t see her.

  The taller figure was approaching Christopher slowly. Willow was reminded of a skilled sheepdog controlling a solitary animal, moving it at will. Here, Christopher was being inched away from the fire and towards the cliff edge. The predator darted forward and Christopher stumbled. He was so close to the steep drop that Willow held her breath. An autistic boy, falling to his death in thick fog after running away from school and set
ting light to the beacon, would be seen as an accident, not murder. The killer turned slightly and Willow saw the flash of a blade in the firelight. Christopher was being controlled not just by fear of the individual, but by the knife in their hand.

  She left her position and, crouching low, circled the beacon towards the pair. As she moved she found herself repeating a mantra: Please keep Jimmy away from here. Wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, don’t let him see what’s going on. Because Fran Hunter, Jimmy’s one true love, had been stabbed to death, and Jimmy still thought he was to blame. To save the boy – whatever the danger to himself – would seem like reparation, a way of putting things right. And now, more than anything in the world, Willow needed Jimmy Perez to be alive and well, and a part of her life.

  She paused for a moment. The person with the knife had their back to her and Christopher was so panic-stricken that he still hadn’t seen her. The boy seemed mesmerized by the blade and unaware of the cliff edge behind him. Willow felt the heat of the fire that was still burning fiercely, the embers white-hot and glowing. She tried to think clearly and to weigh up her options. She wasn’t sure she’d be quick enough to jump the predator without sending Christopher over the cliff, and perhaps Christopher was the only person now who could bring the killer to justice. Deep down, though, she knew her anxiety for the boy was an excuse: she was only concerned for her own safety and that of her baby. Willow hesitated, hating herself for her cowardice, her indecision and her inability to act. Would she stay here, watching the scene play out before her, waiting for the boy to fall to his death, too scared to move and save him?

  There was a faint sound behind her. She turned her head slowly and watched Perez appear out of the fog. He made no attempt to hide. She supposed that he’d been watching the scene too, because he’d surely been here longer than her.