While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  Under the stinging needles of a hot shower, she became aware of how many places she hurt from the fall the night before. Looking down at her naked body through the streaming water, she noticed dark, painful bruises blossoming on her knees and elbows, as well as the cuts to her hands and arms where the glass of the hurricane lamp had caught her. But she could not explain the marks across her breasts and thighs. Peering closer through the steam, she saw that they looked exactly like the bruise she had found on her hip that morning after the first of her dreams; like nothing so much as small bite marks, livid crimson welts where the skin had been sucked hard or tugged by teeth. She must have fallen harder than she thought, she told herself, and caught her chest on the sharp edge of the metal shelves on the way down. Afterwards, with a towel wrapped around her hair, she examined her face in the misted mirror. How haggard she looked, with that great bruise swelling to purple on her eyebrow, and shadows under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in a year. She ought to rest now; there was nothing more she could do as far as Robbie was concerned until Edward came over at the end of the school day.

  But she could not stay idle for long; she put on clean clothes and wandered the house, returning to the kitchen every few minutes to check the progress of the phone, missing Horace and the reassuring padding of his paws on the wooden floor. She could not settle to reading, and the thought of taking out her sketchbook, with its pictures that seemed to have come straight from Ailsa’s journal, sickened her. She heated a carton of soup on the stove, more for something to do than from any real appetite, and left it to go cold after a few spoonfuls. Outside, the wind slammed against the window panes and chased around the gables and the turret like a woman crying.

  On one of her tours, as she passed the telephone table in the entrance hall and saw that the message light was still flashing, she remembered that she had not listened to the new message from the night before; she had switched it off in a panic, fearing the recurrence of that sickly voice intoning Time to go. Now, in this muted daylight, she felt braver, and hesitated only briefly before pressing the button.

  It began with that same strange, rhythmic static, like the turning of an old record; her skin prickled coldly, but the words, when they came, flooded her with relief: Caleb, his voice high and peevish, the way it sounded when he was overtired and not getting his own way.

  ‘Mom-my! When are you coming? You said it was soon!’

  She smiled at the familiar whiny tone; Caleb could be exhaustingly stubborn when he wanted his own way. But she was knifed with guilt too; she had had barely any contact with him for days. She had thought it might be easier to talk freely to him while she was here, with the advantage of distance; now it only felt that her journey had put another obstacle between them. Of course he couldn’t understand her absence. It was selfish and deluded to have imagined he would. She should call right away; he would wind himself up if she didn’t. Nearly six in the morning there, she thought, checking her watch; Dan would be getting him up for school in half an hour anyway. It was only when she picked up the receiver that she remembered the severed phone line. She couldn’t call them, and if Dan tried to ring again and found the line dead, he would assume she had cut herself off deliberately; he would start harassing Kaye, or quite possibly jump on a plane and come out to check on her in person. She must stall that at all costs. Maybe it would be best, she thought, replacing the receiver, if she took Kaye up on her offer to stay at the pub that night. She could use their phone; that might at least appease Dan for now, and she couldn’t deny that after the previous night the prospect of an ordinary room, surrounded by other people, offered a certain comfort. She decided to drive into town in the afternoon, to save Edward the journey, and take an overnight bag with her.

  She supposed she must have slept, because she became aware of the doorbell echoing through the house, followed by a furious hammering; she opened her eyes, momentarily disconcerted, to find herself lying on the sofa in the downstairs drawing room, where they had discovered Ailsa’s book. Rain lashed steadily against the French doors, with greater ferocity than before; the gale had worked itself up to a vicious temper and the room was almost dark. Shivering, she pushed herself to her feet as the bell rang again; her watch told her it was quarter to four. She raked her hands quickly through her hair as she hurried along the corridor, wishing she had woken in time to tidy her appearance before Edward arrived, conscious of how washed-out and downright old she must look to him. But when she opened the front door, she was surprised to see Dougie Reid standing in the porch in full waterproofs, his pointed features scrunched against the rain streaming from his hood. Instinctively she stepped back. He dangled a car key between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘A’right, hen. Christ, what happened to your face?’ He pointed at her eye.

  ‘I hit my head.’ She waited.

  ‘Looks nasty. You want to be more careful. Listen – I need a favour.’ He grinned at her wary expression. ‘No that kind of favour, don’t look so worried. I’ve been sent to get wee Robbie’s quad bike back.’

  ‘Have they found him?’ She almost stumbled forward in her eagerness for good news. His face turned serious.

  ‘No. And that’s no like him at all – folk are starting to get worried. Bill McCrae’s called a meeting in the pub in half an hour, everyone’s to go along. He wants to organise search parties. He wants you there and all, since you were the last to see him.’

  She didn’t like the way he looked at her as he said this, the weight of implication in his tone. ‘OK, I can be there. So what’s the favour?’

  ‘I need you to drive my truck to town while I take the bike.’ He jangled the keys at her.

  She backed away, shaking her head. ‘I can’t drive your truck. Besides, how would I get home?’

  ‘I can give you a ride after.’

  She did not miss the lascivious glint in his eye. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble.’

  ‘Nae bother. It’s either that or you bring me out here later to collect it.’ He waggled the key more insistently.

  ‘I – I’m not good with big vehicles. I had a car accident earlier this year,’ she added quietly. ‘I’m still a little shaken by it, I get nervous. And with this weather—’

  ‘Ach, you’ll no meet anything on the roads tonight. It’s dead easy, you know the way.’

  ‘I was kind of – expecting someone.’ She glanced at her watch.

  ‘Edward, you mean?’ His mouth twitched in a smile. ‘He’s gone on up to the pub for the meeting. Lucky coincidence – he came round to see Annag after school, I was there and we decided it was time to talk to Bill. He mentioned he’d promised to come out and tell you what was happening. I was coming for the bike so I said I could kill two birds with one stone.’

  She didn’t like the way he said this, nor the way he rested his gaze on her; there was an impertinence to it, a knowingness. When she hesitated, his eyes narrowed. ‘A wee boy’s gone missing, Zoe. Folk muck in when something like this happens. That’s what we do round here.’

  There was a long silence, full of unspoken implication.

  ‘OK. I’ll get my bag.’ If she grabbed a toothbrush and change of underwear now, she thought, there would be no need for him to drive her home later; she could stay at Kaye’s and avoid that situation at least. She hovered on the mat, watching the wind blow gusts of water on to the tiles inside the front door, aware that she could not very well leave him standing outside. ‘Wait in here, then, I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘Nae rush.’ He stepped inside and drew his hood back, pulling the door shut behind him. ‘If you’ve got the kettle on I’ll have a brew while I’m waiting.’

  ‘I’ll only be a second,’ she said, anxious, but he had already begun strolling towards the kitchen. She hurried to get ahead of him.

  ‘I wouldnae mind a cup anyway,’ he said pleasantly, but with an edge that suggested he expected to get his way. ‘There’s nae hurry. It’s going to be a bitch of a ride across the mo
or on that bike – I’d like to get some hot liquid inside me first.’ She saw the grin and waited for the inevitable. ‘Bet you wouldnae mind that either, eh?’

  And there it was. She turned on him. ‘What are you, fifteen?’

  ‘All right, hen, only having a laugh. No need to be so uptight.’

  ‘Did Annag ask you to collect the bike?’ she asked, to change the subject, setting the kettle on the range and rinsing a mug, hoping to get this delay over as quickly as possible. Being alone in the house with Dougie and no working phone was inducing a kind of muted panic which she felt she must disguise, in case he should sense her fear and toy with it.

  ‘Aye. Poor kid’s going out of her head with worry.’

  Zoe recalled Annag’s attitude that morning when she had learned that her brother was missing. ‘Give her a joint, then,’ she said crisply. ‘That’ll calm her down.’

  Anger flashed across his small, colourless eyes for an instant, but he produced a thin smile. ‘Sounds like someone else round here could do with one and all.’ The smile vanished. ‘Seriously, I don’t like what you’re implying there. I wouldnae like to think you’re repeating that to anyone.’ He pointed an oil-stained finger at her. ‘Big Jim Logan’s one of my oldest pals. I keep an eye on those kids for him when he’s working.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t do a very good job last night, did you?’

  His mouth curved back to a grin, and this time there was malice in it. ‘Wasnae my roof he was under when he disappeared. It’s no me the police want to talk to.’

  They stared at each other, until the silence was broken by a liquid electronic bleep. Zoe jumped, and turned; it had come from the phone on the counter, and suggested it had finished charging. She yanked the lead out and tucked it hastily into the back pocket of her jeans, but she knew that Dougie had spotted it.

  ‘How do you take your tea?’ she asked, to distract him.

  ‘So strong you could trot a mouse on it,’ he replied automatically, but his eyes had narrowed again. ‘That your phone there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Looks like a kid’s one. I’d have thought a lady like you’d have something a bit more sophisticated.’ He kept up the easy smile, but she didn’t like the way he was looking at her.

  ‘Just a big kid at heart,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘The teabags are in that jar. I’ll go get my stuff so I don’t keep you waiting.’

  ‘Take your time. Like I said, there’s nae rush.’ His gaze had started searching the room now; she disliked leaving him alone there, but could think of no other way to hasten him out of the house.

  When she returned a few minutes later with her overnight bag, he was leaning against the range sipping a mug of tea. Her eyes flashed around the kitchen to see if anything looked disturbed or out of place, but all was apparently as she had left it. The phone weighed down the inside pocket of her jacket; she had not yet dared to try switching it on, for fear the sound would attract his attention.

  ‘Do you think Robbie’s OK?’ she asked, to steer the conversation back to safer ground. ‘I heard it’s not the first time he’s run away.’

  ‘Trying to make yourself feel better?’ Dougie rubbed a hand over his mouth and unshaved chin, and an expression she could not read passed across his face. ‘Aye, he’s a wee truant. Doesnae have much time for school, since his pal vanished. But it’s no like him – staying out for hours in weather like this. He likes his home comforts, our Robbie. So, aye, folk are worrying this time.’ He took a sip of tea, his eyes fixed on her over the top of the mug. ‘What was he doing out here last night, anyway?’

  ‘Playing pranks on me. Pretending to be a ghost.’ She sighed.

  Dougie nodded, as if that made sense. ‘Odd that he’d leave the bike behind, though. I cannae understand that. Makes me think you know more than you’re telling us.’

  A sick chill spread through her gut; was he going to accuse her of doing something to the boy?

  ‘That’s all I know,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I said he shouldn’t ride back in the dark. I was going to take him home this morning, but when I went to wake him, he was gone. I thought maybe the bike was out of gas.’

  Dougie drained the last of his tea and ran the mug under the tap. ‘Well, I’ll soon find out. You can tell all that to the police, eh. And open a window, hen. Smells like you’re hiding a corpse in here.’

  Outside, he handed her the key to the truck as the rain battered their faces. ‘Try not to run her off the road,’ he said, with a knowing grin. She waited until he had switched on his flashlight and set off along the cliff path towards the place where Robbie had left the bike, before scurrying around the side of the house to the cellar hatch with her collar pulled up around her ears. Her thoughts chased one another so fast they tripped themselves up; Dougie’s insinuation that she was hiding the truth about Robbie’s disappearance had frightened her, and she was aware that any blurring of the facts now could compromise her later. Should she tell the police that she had hit Robbie with the driftwood, believing him to be an intruder? But then they might suspect that she had accidentally hurt him badly – killed him, even – and hidden the body, or pushed him off the cliff to hide the evidence. She rubbed the rain from her eyes and felt the weight of her tiredness. She was being ridiculous, melodramatic; no one would think that. Even so – better to say he had hurt himself in the cellar, and that was why she had asked him to stay; better not to admit responsibility. She suspected the islanders would rally together against a stranger, if she gave them grounds for suspicion. She scrabbled around in the wet grass and sand until she found the wood, where she had dropped it in shock the night before. She turned it in her hands, but it was too dark to see clearly; it was sodden from the rain, but if it still held traces of Robbie’s blood the police would surely find them, and that would look damning for her. The best solution would be to burn it in the range before anyone came out to search the house. There was no time to do that now; instead, she lifted one side of the coal hatch shutters and dropped the piece of wood through the hole, hearing it thud wetly on the stone floor below.

  The saloon bar of the Stag was as full as she had seen it the week before, on the night she arrived, but without the easy ambience of good cheer that had accompanied the band. Instead, a close, febrile air hung over the small huddles of people clutching pints or hot drinks and murmuring to one another in low, urgent voices. The atmosphere shifted palpably as she entered; there was no mistaking the way the conversations petered out as heads turned to register her arrival. Again, she felt those stirrings of fear, an awareness of the pack closing against her. They think I’m responsible, she thought, as her gaze skimmed the room, snagging on eyes eloquent with mistrust. If Robbie had come to any harm, she realised, they would blame her squarely for it; her and the house.

  She saw Annag sitting on a stool by the bar, her face pink and puffy from crying, a tissue pressed to her nose. Oh, now you can put on a show of being upset, Zoe thought; now there’s an audience. The look that passed across the girl’s face when their eyes met told Zoe she could hope for no sympathy from that quarter; it would suit Annag in various ways to shift the responsibility for her brother’s welfare on to someone else, especially her. Kaye stood beside Annag with her arm around the girl’s shoulder; when she glanced up, Zoe saw in her face a mixture of confusion and suspicion, and realised in that instant how serious her situation had become. To her great relief, she turned to see Edward pushing his way across the bar towards her. He reached out and squeezed her elbow surreptitiously; she felt the pointed stares of the islanders and was grateful for his solidarity.

  Before they could speak, the whispering and nudging was interrupted by a tall man in police uniform, who clapped his hands and took up a position in front of the bar. This, she supposed, must be Bill McCrae, the Special Constable. He wore his grey hair close-cropped above a high forehead, and took in the assembled crowd with an air of suppressed relish that he was attempting to hide behind a stern
professionalism. An expectant hush fell over the room.

  ‘Friends,’ he began portentously, clasping his hands together. ‘Today our community must brave another difficult situation involving one of our children. Wee Robbie Logan has gone missing overnight from the McBride house.’ He paused to allow the flurry of gasps and appalled murmurs, punctuated by Annag’s gulping sobs, to subside. ‘I know we’re all familiar with Robbie’s mischief –’ another pause for indulgent smiles and nods – ‘but I fear we must take it seriously this time. He took his father’s quad bike out there last night, but left it up on the cliff. So wherever he is, he went on foot. I’m going to suggest those of us who are fit and able divide up into search parties. Some can check his usual haunts around the town, but I want the strongest men out on the moor and along the cliffs – I’ve taken the liberty of dividing you up into groups. We can’t get reinforcements from the mainland at the present time, with the weather, and it’s too bad for the coastguard to search along the foot of the cliffs …’ here he paused and bowed his head, to acknowledge what had been implied; there was an audible intake of breath, ‘… but if we pull together, I have every faith that we’ll bring him home safe.’

  ‘That’s what you said about Iain Finlay.’ All heads swivelled to look; the defiant speaker was the old lady with tea-cosy hair Zoe had once seen in the bookshop; her expression was ominous. Annag produced an obliging wail.

  Bill’s air of authority faltered.

  ‘Now, Mrs McDaid, let’s not be hasty—’

  An old man with white brows and weathered skin the colour of walnut pushed himself to his feet and glared straight at Zoe before turning to point an accusing finger at Kaye.