While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  19

  It was still dark when she woke to feel hot breath on her face, in her ear a heavy, panting sound. Something cold and damp touched her chin; she yelped and brushed it away, but it was followed by a wet, rasping touch along her cheek and a soft moan. She blinked her eyes open to see two bright pinpricks staring back at her from the gloom, and a black snout quivering an inch from her nose.

  ‘Jesus, Horace.’ She laughed shakily, her limbs slack with relief. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

  A blade of light pierced the gap between the doors of the coal hatch above; gradually her sight adjusted to the shadows. Raising her head painfully, she put out a hand to lever herself up and drew it back instantly with a cry; she had leaned on a shard of glass from the broken lantern. The memory brought a rush of panic; she peered around the cellar, but could see no sign of anyone except Horace. She hauled herself carefully to her feet and kicked the splinters of glass aside, hoping he had not cut his paws in the dark, before pausing to inspect herself for injuries; besides this new shallow cut to the base of her thumb, there seemed to be nothing worse than minor bruises, though she noticed that she felt unusually tender between her legs, as if she had been penetrated. She could not find an explanation for this, except to think it must be connected with the end of her period. But none of these bruises could compete with the thudding in her head from the wine she had drunk the night before; white-hot bolts of pain shot behind her eyes as she moved. Fragments of memory rushed at her; her hand flew to her pocket to find the outline of the phone. A quick check reassured her that it had not been damaged by her fall. Today she would drive into town and buy a charger for it, and at least one of the island’s mysteries might be solved. Then she remembered: Robbie.

  Cursing, she picked her way across to the steps that led up to the kitchen, where the door at the top stood open. Horace trotted gamely after her. She had no idea what time it might be; she had to get the child back to town, take him to a doctor, explain as best she could what had happened. A sickly light fell through the kitchen windows; the sky outside was heavy and overcast, with bloated clouds pushed across the bay by a gusting wind grown fiercer overnight. Drizzle spattered the panes. The clock above the range showed twenty after nine.

  Shit, she said, aloud. The poor kid must still be sleeping, but he should have been at school by now; Edward would have noticed his absence, even if Robbie’s negligent sister hadn’t. Panicking, she raced up the two flights of stairs to the second floor, calling his name gently, so as not to wake him with too much of a fright, but when she opened the door of his room it was empty, the bed neatly made.

  ‘Robbie?’ Her first thought was that he might have gone to the bathroom. She hurried from room to room, calling him, checking all the toilets and washrooms, once catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror and starting at the wild-eyed woman who stared back, her hair tangled and unkempt, a smudge of blood on her face from a cut above her eyebrow where she must have struck her head on the cellar floor when she fell. She called more frantically, telling him the joke was over, there was breakfast waiting, but the house remained silent. She tried the tower, but found no sign of him there either. She revisited the first floor, and the ground, until she had searched every room and even the larger cupboards twice and was forced to concede that Robbie had gone. Perhaps he had woken early and not wanted to face her, she told herself, in an effort at reassurance, or else he wanted to avoid a confrontation with his sister. He was probably even now warm and dry in Edward’s classroom, with no one any the wiser about his nocturnal adventures. But the front door remained bolted on the inside, the back door of the kitchen that led out to the veranda was also locked, with the key hanging on its hook. His single woollen glove still sat on the table; Zoe’s eyes travelled uneasily to the cellar door. Had he let himself out that way? She could think of no other explanation, but that meant that he must have crept past her unconscious form. The thought troubled her, as did the one that followed on its heels: if he had come through the cellar, he must have seen that she had discovered his hiding place for Iain’s phone, though he had evidently not attempted to search her for it. Perhaps it was the knowledge of that discovery, and the fear it bred, that had caused him to flee.

  ‘Come on, Horace,’ she said, unlocking the back door and grabbing up her boots and jacket, pausing to stow the phone safely in an inside zipped pocket. The dog looked at her with that same expression of resigned exasperation, but loyally followed her down to the beach.

  The wind was stronger out here than it had appeared from the shelter of the house. Towering grey waves gathered pace and smashed against the foot of the cliffs; the gulls appeared tossed like confetti on the high currents that whipped her hair across her face and into her mouth. She yanked it back and twisted it inside her collar as she set off up the cliff path, battling into a gale that grew stronger the higher she climbed, flattening the heather and hurling rain into her eyes, until she feared it might pluck her off the face of the rock and fling her out into the whirling air. As she crested the final rise of the path where it levelled out at the top, she looked to her left and there, on a patch of clear ground, she saw a muddy quad bike. Her stomach plummeted; she ran over, to find a helmet secured to the seat. If Robbie had not taken the bike – she tried to untangle her thoughts in the bellowing wind – then how had he returned home? Or had he not gone home at all?

  She hurried back towards the cliff edge, remembering the boy’s ominous words the night before, his gloomy certainty that ‘they’ would make him disappear like Iain. What had he been trying to tell her? Tufts of bleached grass and uneven erosion conspired to play tricks on the eye; it was hard to tell, right there at the edge, where solid ground ended and the drop began. Panic gripped her. Suppose she had hit Robbie harder than she realised? If he had been concussed by the blow after all – worse, if she had caused some internal head trauma – and he had come up here in search of his bike but he’d been dazed, or his vision had been affected, up here, in this weather – if he’d strayed too close to the cliff, there was every chance he might have—

  She stopped, steadying herself, and hooked a finger inside Horace’s collar to pull him back; when she was sure he was sitting obediently, she shuffled close enough to the overhang that she could peer over to the boiling white mass at its foot, where the sea smashed over black teeth of rock. The wind gusted dangerously and, looking down, she experienced a moment of vertigo; the sensation of a hand in her back, between the shoulder blades, pushing her forward. She stumbled, caught off balance; dizziness clouded her vision and briefly, as she pitched forward, she thought she glimpsed a shape below, under the waves. But she righted herself and dropped to her knees, clutching at clumps of grass, until the giddiness passed and she felt stable enough to edge herself backwards on to the path. Her pulse beat wildly in her throat; the storm wind, rather than blowing away the fog of her hangover, seemed only to have intensified the pain. She was starving too, almost faint with hunger; that would explain how she had almost lost her balance. She needed to eat before she could think clearly. Horace stood beside her, his tail thumping against her side; she slung an arm gratefully around his neck.

  ‘Come on,’ she muttered, hauling herself to her feet. ‘Breakfast. And then we have to find Robbie. Otherwise …’ She left the thought unfinished.

  She drove first to the Stag, snatching bites from a piece of toast in her lap on the way; guilt had stopped her lingering over food in the kitchen. In the car park she sat for a few minutes in the car, watching the rain lash at the windscreen.

  ‘You’d better stay here in the dry,’ she told Horace, switching off the engine. ‘I’ll get you home in a minute, I promise.’

  The public entrances were locked, though she could hear a vacuum cleaner dimly droning from the unlit interior. It was unlikely that Annag would be here at this time, but Zoe could think of no other way to find her. Making her way around the back of the pub to the beer garden, her jacket pulled up over her head ag
ainst the squall, she found the Drummonds’ private entrance and rang the bell. As she pressed it for a second time, Kaye opened the door, breathless in loose-fitting workout clothes, her pink hair tied up in a scarf.

  ‘Caught me doing my Pilates— Oh my God,’ she said, as she looked Zoe up and down. ‘Come inside. What happened – have you had an accident?’

  Zoe stepped into a narrow hallway at the foot of a flight of stairs, touching a hand to her face; she had forgotten that she had not stopped to clean herself up before jumping in the car, and that her appearance might be liable to cause alarm. The cut on her thumb had bled down her wrist and on to her sleeve; the wound on her brow was also sticky with congealed blood, and her jeans were muddy at the knee where she had collapsed on the cliff path.

  ‘It’s worse than it looks,’ she said. ‘Is Annag here?’

  ‘Annag?’ Kaye blinked. ‘She doesn’t come on till eleven.’ She grinned, as if to make light of the situation. ‘I know we’ve a reputation here in the isles, but even we don’t open the pubs at breakfast time.’

  ‘Where can I find her?’

  Kaye’s face grew serious. ‘She’ll be having a lie-in, if I know her. What do you want Annag for?’

  ‘I need to ask her something. Where does she live?’

  Kaye rattled off the address, but bit her lip, clearly anxious at Zoe’s manner. ‘Do you want me to call her for you? It’s no bother.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’d better go.’ She didn’t want to upset Kaye with thoughts of Robbie’s disappearance if he was safely at home or school. ‘Is it far?’

  ‘Stonecutters’ Row? Not at all – it’s the wee lane of cottages behind the green. Not the pretty coloured ones facing the kirk, but the road behind that, where the tourists don’t go. Zoe,’ she called, as Zoe turned to leave, ‘are you sure you won’t come in and have a cup of tea while I call Annag for you? You look …’ she hesitated ‘… like you might need one.’

  Zoe rubbed at the blood on her sleeve. ‘No – really. But there is one thing – there’s a problem with the phone up at the house. I think the line’s broken.’

  Kaye frowned. ‘Broken? What, come down in the wind, you mean?’

  ‘I guess. Anyway, it’s not working. Can we get someone out to fix it?’

  ‘In this?’ Kaye gestured to the door and shook her head, with a hint of indulgence, as if humouring a tourist. ‘These storms are set in for the next couple of days, they say, and it’s going to get worse tonight. They’ve cancelled all the ferries – the last one left at eight this morning. Mick rang to say he’s stuck there till they’re back up and running. We’ll no get anyone out from the mainland now, I’m sorry. If I were you, I’d stock up on fresh milk and bread while you’re in town – there might not be any deliveries for a wee while.’

  Zoe nodded, pressing the knuckle of her thumb to her teeth as she processed the implications. Catching her expression, Kaye laid a hand on Zoe’s arm.

  ‘The invitation still stands, you know – if you want to come up to the pub tonight, that room’s waiting for you. I know I’d be happier if you were here than worrying about you out there in the storm, with no phone working.’

  ‘Thanks, that’s kind.’ She left Kaye with a wave and a forced smile, but all she could think of was that roiling water at the foot of the cliff, and the shape she thought she had seen.

  As she turned into Stonecutters’ Row, she saw what Kaye meant about it not being a street for tourists. Unlike the carefully preserved holiday rental cottages facing the green, done up in their pastel colours with neatly tended gardens, the houses here sagged under a weight of neglect, and looked more melancholic in the rain. Roof tiles were missing; old bicycles rusted in the front yards, and in one an unwanted fridge slumped against the wall with its door hanging open. Zoe pushed open the gate of number two, neither the worst nor the best of the row, and pressed the buzzer. Rain poured in a cataract from a blocked gutter at the side of the front door. She could not hear whether the bell had sounded, so to be sure she jammed her finger on it while hammering on the glass with her other hand. After a disproportionately long time, she heard shuffling steps from inside, accompanied by creative swearing.

  Annag opened the door and stared at her with undisguised resentment. She was wrapped in a dirty towelling dressing gown, her hair hanging in dank strands around her face, which bore smudges of make-up she had not bothered to remove before bed. A smell of stale cigarettes gusted out from the house behind her.

  ‘Is Robbie here?’ Zoe asked, trying to keep the panic tamped down.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Annag folded her arms. ‘He’s at school, isn’t he? Why would he be here?’

  ‘But – you have seen him this morning?’

  ‘No.’ The girl regarded her with scorn. ‘I was literally asleep until you woke me up. I was working till gone midnight last night,’ she added, defensive. ‘Robbie gets himself to school. What’s it to do with you?’

  Zoe realised her mistake; she should have checked the school first. If Annag had been asleep, Robbie could have come home, changed and got himself there without her knowing any different. There was the matter of the bike, but she pushed that to the back of her mind; maybe he had run out of gas.

  ‘Nothing – I’m sorry. I’m sure he is.’ She began to back down the path. Water ran in rivulets down the inside of her collar; her jeans were soaked through. Annag let out a theatrical sigh.

  ‘He’s no in fucking school again, is he? Did they send you to find him? Running errands for your boyfriend now, are you?’ Without waiting for an answer, she held the door wider and made an extravagant, sweeping gesture with her hand. ‘Well, he’s no here. You can check if you want. Try the kirkyard, or the bookshop. Or down at your place –’ she raised a knowing eyebrow – ‘he sometimes bunks off out there. He’s obsessed with it.’

  ‘He’s run off before, then?’ Zoe tried not to sound too hopeful.

  ‘All the time. Wee fucker wants attention.’ Annag fixed her with a defiant stare while she rummaged in the pocket of her dressing gown and brought out a packet of cigarettes.

  I’d run away too if I had to live with you, Zoe almost said, but reined herself in. She was too sharply aware that she could be held responsible for losing Robbie, and if he didn’t return soon, she would need the family’s understanding; it would not be smart to make a further enemy of his sister.

  ‘He’ll turn up,’ Annag said airily, propping the unlit cigarette in her mouth as she closed the door. ‘He always does.’ Adding, under her breath but loud enough for Zoe to catch, ‘No that it’s any of your fucking business.’

  Zoe half-ran the short distance across the green to the school, hampered by the various aches in her knees, groin and head from the night before. The rain was so dense now she could barely see across the playground; whipped by the wind into billowing curtains of water that hit the ground so hard it rebounded up to waist height. She was surprised to find the playground gate and the front door unlocked, so that she walked in unhindered, her clothes dripping over the colourful welcome mat. She hesitated in front of a glass-fronted office with one small desk and chair and a sign that read ‘Mrs L. McCrae, School Secretary’. Of Mrs McCrae herself, there was no sign. Zoe continued along the corridor with the children’s paintings where she had spoken to Kaye the previous afternoon until she caught sight of Edward through the window of a yellow door at the end; he was making animated gestures, apparently doing an impression of a lunatic gorilla. From behind the door she heard peals of childish laughter and found herself smiling; she watched him with a sudden surge of affection and thought again how much Caleb would be delighted with him, so that she almost forgot the gravity of her purpose there.

  She knocked on the classroom door and walked in; Edward started, clearly caught off guard. He moved towards her, but her gaze raked the room, scanning for Robbie. She could not see him, though she noticed a sturdy girl with purple-ribboned braids lean across to her companion and whisper ostentatiously in he
r ear behind a cupped hand; both girls burst into loud giggles, staring at her with knowing expressions in identical wide blue eyes that marked them as Kaye’s daughters.

  ‘That’s enough, Megan,’ Edward said, over his shoulder. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and lowered his voice. ‘What’s happened? You look—’ he stopped, taking in her cuts and bruises.

  ‘Like shit. I know,’ she whispered back. ‘Where’s Robbie?’

  ‘He’s not in yet. Why?’ His eyes registered her urgency. ‘Let’s talk out here.’ He took her by the elbow and guided her towards the door. ‘Mrs McCrae, would you keep an eye on them while I deal with something?’ This last was directed to a stern-faced woman in a Fair Isle sweater who sat in one corner, helping a curly-haired boy with his reading. She responded with a curt nod, but her eyes on Zoe were narrowed and disapproving.

  He led Zoe to the end of the corridor, but kept his voice to a whisper. ‘Robbie truants all the time. There’s not much I can do without involving Social Services, and I’m reluctant to do that at this stage – it’s hard to get his dad to acknowledge there’s a problem. Why are you so worried about him?’

  ‘He came to the house last night. He’s the one who’s been prowling around, playing tricks. He hurt himself and I put him to bed, but this morning he was gone and his quad bike’s still there.’ The words tumbled out; she paused to draw breath. ‘He seemed really unhappy – I was afraid he might have taken off and …’ She let her hands fall empty to her sides.

  Edward nodded, processing this.

  ‘He’s probably afraid he’s in trouble, that’s all. Let’s give him till the end of the day – if he’s not home by four, we’ll have another think. Looks like you hurt yourself too.’ He raised a hand as if to touch her face; she flinched away.