While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  ‘This is your Michael’s doing,’ he said, and a chorus of murmurs backed him up. ‘He was told he should leave that place to rot. He cannae say he wasnae given warning. Greed – that’s what it was.’ More murmurs, heartier this time. The speaker raised his voice. ‘His father wasnae cold in his grave before Michael started talking about incomers.’ He paused to look back at Zoe, as if she were also implicated. ‘And now two wee boys gone. How many more, before he’ll see what he’s done?’

  Kaye let go of Annag and drew herself up, her face flushed with indignation and distress.

  ‘How dare you say that, Malcolm McEwan – when Mick’s no even here to speak for himself! And you’re happy enough to take one on the house from him when he is.’ The white-haired man looked down at the glass in his hand, somewhat sheepish. Kaye planted her hands on her hips, her breath coming in shallow gasps, making her bosom tremble. ‘How can he be responsible for Robbie? You tell me that, eh?’

  ‘He stirred up the old curses,’ the man said, to a ripple of mumbled affirmations, but Bill cut in with his serious policeman voice.

  ‘Now then, Malcolm, let’s have no more talk of curses, that’s no going to help anybody. Nor is pointing the finger.’ As he said this, he glanced across and his gaze rested on her; she felt the islanders’ eyes follow and forced herself to look down, lest her face convince them of her guilt. ‘What’s past is past. We’ve to think about Robbie now, not Iain. And we’re practical folk here, aren’t we? We know how to get things done.’ Another smattering of agreement, though with less conviction. ‘Right. Well, we’re going to get our torches and waterproofs and bring wee Robbie safely home. Who’s with me?’

  He was answered by a scrape of chairs and a reluctant nodding of heads, but clearly not the enthusiasm he had hoped for. Undaunted, he took his list of search parties and set about the room, organising groups, quashing protests, dispersing instructions with an air of thwarted military ambition. Zoe couldn’t help noticing that, excepting the one sent to look around the village, Bill’s search parties consisted exclusively of men, while the women volunteered to stay by the phones and make tea for the searchers. She also realised, belatedly, that there was no sign of Charles.

  Edward was attached to a group dispatched to search the cliffs near the house.

  ‘I’ll come and see you afterwards,’ he whispered as he zipped his jacket.

  ‘I have something to show you,’ she hissed back, shaking her head quickly when he raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘I can’t tell you here.’

  She hovered uncertainly by the bar as one by one the groups of men left, armoured in squeaking oilskins against the weather. Dougie had not yet returned; she left his keys with Kaye, who smiled kindly and offered her a cup of tea, but with a wariness in her eyes that Zoe had not seen before. Or perhaps she was imagining it. She had just accepted the tea, with thanks, when Bill McCrae approached, his face solemn in the yellow light.

  ‘Ms Adams? I’d like your assistance, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I was going to offer – I could go out with the guys on the cliffs, if you want help—’

  He gave her a brief, patient smile. ‘Oh dear me, no. You need a local knowledge of those cliffs to be up there in this weather. It’s much too dangerous – we don’t want you going missing as well.’ The smile faded, to be replaced by the expression he used to show he was taking his responsibilities extremely seriously. ‘But there is one thing you can do for me. I’d like to take you back to the house now and have a look around, if you don’t mind. And you can talk me through exactly what happened with Robbie last night, see if we can piece it all together.’

  ‘Sure.’ She smiled tightly, but all she could think of was the driftwood on the cellar floor, and how, without her car, there would be no time to hide it.

  ‘Good grief, it smells like rotting flesh in here,’ Bill said, wiping his feet carefully on the mat before stepping into the entrance hall and raising his head to sniff the air.

  ‘Yeah, that’s Robbie.’ Zoe, less fastidious, shook off her jacket as rainwater streamed from it over the tiles. She turned to catch the look on his face. ‘I mean – that’s one of the tricks he played on me. He’s put dead mice behind the radiators – I haven’t managed to get them out yet.’

  ‘Tell me about these pranks, then,’ Bill said, following her along the corridor to the kitchen.

  She related the history of her encounters with Robbie: the face at the window, the gull, the padlock, the burgers – here even Bill allowed the briefest twitch of a smile – right up to the noises that had alerted her to the boy’s presence in the cellar the night before, though she omitted any mention of the driftwood or the phone. While she spoke, Bill nodded and made affirmative noises, as if her account confirmed a hypothesis, while jotting methodically in his notebook.

  ‘Do you want tea?’ she asked, when she had finished, turning away to the sink so that he could not see her face, since she feared he would somehow be able to detect in it the incompleteness of her story.

  ‘No, I’m up to here with tea, to be honest. I want to get on and catch up with the searchers. I’d like to take a look in that cellar, though.’ He looked at the door in the corner.

  ‘Sure.’ She set the kettle down and forced a smile. ‘You’ll need a flashlight – the bulb’s blown, I think.’

  ‘I’ve a powerful one in the car. You wait here.’

  As soon as he had gone, she rushed to the cellar door and peered into the thick shadow. Almost without thinking, she flicked the light switch and, to her surprise, the bulb buzzed briefly and flickered into life. She steadied herself against the door jamb; she was certain it had not worked the night before. With a glance over her shoulder, she took a few hesitant steps down into the gloom; the light was dim, and failed to reach the furthest corners, throwing them into deeper shadow as a result. The wood must be right over the other side, under the coal hatch steps; she would have to pass that dresser, with its mirror. A cold sensation slid between her shoulder blades and she lost her nerve, hesitating long enough that Bill’s heavy footsteps could be heard behind her on the kitchen flagstones and it was too late.

  ‘Right we are.’ He stopped at the top of the stairs. ‘Looks like that light’s working fine.’

  ‘I – I guess it must be a loose connection. It’s not very bright, though.’

  ‘Aye, well – let’s take a look then. You’ve no touched anything?’ He eyed her oddly; she wondered if he thought she had lied about the light to create a diversion. She shook her head, and he edged past her to sweep the beam of his flashlight around the walls.

  ‘Looks like there was a bit of a scuffle down here,’ he remarked, taking in the fallen shelves and broken lamp.

  ‘Like I said, the light wasn’t working. Robbie knocked the shelves over in the dark.’ Her voice sounded high and hectic, even to her.

  ‘It must have been very upsetting, to have all these tricks played on you,’ he said evenly, as if she had not spoken. ‘Very frightening. Out here on your own, in a house with this reputation.’

  ‘Well – at first, I guess. Then I was just pissed about it, you know? That anyone would do something so pathetic.’

  ‘Understandably. So you must have been very angry when you discovered it was Robbie. Anyone would be, in your position.’

  She saw where he was leading. He crossed the floor carefully, scouring it with the beam of his flashlight, his boots crunching over broken glass.

  ‘Actually, I was more relieved.’ She descended another couple of steps, unsure whether or not she should keep out of his way. ‘That it was only a kid messing around, I mean. I’d worried it was—’ She broke off. Bill turned to look at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. An adult. A man, I mean, who might want to—’ She stopped, afraid she was digging a deeper hole. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t angry with Robbie, once I knew it was him. I felt sorry for him.’

  Bill had crouched to examine the flagstones underfoot. He touche
d a finger to the floor and raised it to his nose. ‘These are bloodstains here.’ He looked up expectantly.

  ‘That was me.’ She indicated the injury on her brow. ‘I tripped over the shelves and hit my head – see? And then I cut my hand on the broken glass.’

  ‘While you were chasing Robbie?’

  ‘No – he was in bed by then, upstairs.’

  ‘So what were you doing down here?’

  ‘I – I came down to clean up.’ But she knew he had caught the hesitation. ‘Clean up’ had been the wrong choice, too; he would assume she had been trying to erase the evidence of her crime. He picked his way across to the coal hatch steps and shone the flashlight upwards at the wooden shutters. The wind rattled them in their frame and rainwater was leaking through the gap. He peered up at the hatch for a long time; Zoe could tell that he was doing it for dramatic effect, but she felt rooted to the spot by his stillness, his intent gaze, as if she did not have permission to move until he did. Finally he stepped back, as if satisfied that some question had been answered, and his foot struck the driftwood.

  Even in the dim light, she could see the muscles of his face working as he made his calculations while he stooped to pick it up, first taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapping it around his hand.

  ‘How did this get here? It’s soaking wet.’

  She tried to explain, offering him a version of the truth, a version in which she had been scared by sounds in the cellar and ventured down armed with the piece of wood, only to trip up the intruder and discover it was Robbie. Bill dutifully jotted down her answers, but it was clear he didn’t believe her; he made a show of taking the piece of wood upstairs, holding it carefully in his handkerchief, and wrapping it in a plastic bag to take to his car. She wouldn’t have believed herself either, she thought, listening to her panicked replies. He wanted to see the bed where Robbie had allegedly slept; when she led him up to show him, she was appalled to find bloodstains blooming on the top sheet and pillow.

  ‘But those are mine!’ she protested. She was certain Robbie had not been bleeding when she put him to bed, but her memories of the previous night were blurred and confused. ‘I cut my hand this morning, like I said – it must have dripped. You can get it tested.’

  Bill cocked an eyebrow and gave her a look that suggested she should not attempt to tell him how to do his job. ‘Oh, we will, Ms Adams, I’m sure, but you’ll appreciate I don’t exactly have my own forensics lab out here.’

  He took some photos of the bed on his phone, picked up the pillow gingerly by one corner and led her back downstairs, where he wrapped it in a clean garbage bag and tucked it under his arm.

  ‘Now. I need to get out and see how the search parties are doing on the cliffs, and I’ve no signal here,’ he said, as if this were her fault. ‘Maybe you should come with me.’

  ‘Why?’ She followed him to the entrance hall and leaned against the wall. ‘Am I under arrest?’

  He looked doubtful. ‘No, of course not. But you’ll appreciate there are things worrying me here I need to clear up. You won’t go anywhere, will you?’

  ‘Where would I go, in this?’ She gestured to the rain hammering against the windows. Tiredness squeezed her temples; all she wanted was to be left alone. She had no desire any more to return to the Stag, to the whispers and stares of the islanders, to Kaye’s appalling tea and that light of suspicion in her eyes. Besides, Edward had said he would come and see her. She would wait here for him; it was all she could cope with now.

  ‘Fine. Well – perhaps someone will have good news, and there’ll be nothing to worry about. I’ll drop by later and let you know what’s happening.’

  ‘Mr McCrae – I didn’t hurt Robbie. But he was frightened. He thought someone wanted to get him.’

  Bill’s head jerked up. ‘Did he say who?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me.’ She thought, with a flash of guilt, about the phone in the pocket of her jacket, hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. There was no doubt in her mind that Robbie had run away because he realised she had found the phone; perhaps he feared she had already seen what was on it. She could hand it over to Bill right now, let him deal with whatever mysteries it held. She had a duty to do so, she knew; there would be consequences for keeping it back, if it offered any clue about Robbie’s disappearance. But a perverse instinct stopped her; perhaps it was Bill’s manner, the self-importance and the implied accusation, or perhaps it was loyalty to Robbie himself and the secret he had so stubbornly protected from the police all these months. She felt, the way she had with Ailsa’s diary, that it had come into her hands for a reason after being hidden so long, and that she should be the one to unlock its contents. Not least because she half-dreaded, half-hoped, that she would find confirmation that Iain Finlay had seen what she had seen; that it would offer proof beyond doubt that the terrors of the house were not all in her mind.

  ‘Whoever it was that got Iain, he said.’ She lowered her voice. Bill’s face tightened with anxiety and she realised he was afraid; another vanished child, on his watch, the first one still unexplained and the islanders angrily looking to him for answers. It must have shaken his sense of his own position, to think that Robbie had confided more to her than he had told the police in a year.

  ‘Right.’ He seemed about to say more, but turned his attention instead to the task of assembling his multiple layers of waterproofs. ‘As I say, please don’t go anywhere for the time being. I’ll come back and let you know when there’s news. And I’ll have more questions for you, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ she said, with careful politeness, and closed the door behind him.

  When she was certain that the sound of his engine had died away through the wind, she took the orange phone from her jacket with trembling hands and ran upstairs to her bedroom, where she locked the door of the en suite bathroom and sat on the floor by the heated towel rail. To her amazement, the screen crackled into life when she switched it on, the blankness forming into a selfie of a grinning ten-year-old, with gappy teeth and freckles, flipping the bird at the camera. No passcode; she mouthed a silent thank you and clicked through to videos. There was only one saved. With her breath caught in her throat, she clicked play. As the images began to unfold on the screen, poorly lit and wavering with the young cameraman’s efforts to hold a steady focus, the sound obscured by his own muted breathing, she clamped a hand over her mouth and watched as her eyes widened; a terrible sickening cold spread through her as she understood exactly what Iain had seen in the house that night, and what Robbie had been afraid of ever since.

  21

  By the time she became aware of the doorbell echoing through the house, the screen had long faded to black. Around her, the room slowly gathered shape and she realised she was still sitting on the floor, her back against the bath, Iain’s phone on the floor beside her. She had no idea how long she had been there. Pushing herself to her feet, she stumbled on to the landing, bleary as if she had woken from a deep sleep, as the bell went on ringing, followed by a furious hammering on the front door. It would be Bill, she supposed, back to ask her more insinuating questions. Well, now she had an answer for him, of sorts.

  But when she pulled the door open she saw Edward on the threshold, rain pouring from his clothes, his glasses so spattered she wondered how he could see. At the sight of him, her legs almost buckled with relief; he stepped inside and took off his waterproof coat, slinging it on a peg inside the door. He wiped his glasses on the hem of his shirt and replaced them, frowning at her.

  ‘Are you OK? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Sorry – bad choice of words,’ he added, catching her expression.

  ‘What’s the news?’

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. ‘Nothing so far. I suppose that’s got to be positive, hasn’t it? I mean, they haven’t found a—’ He stopped, looking down. ‘But it’s hard to do anything useful in this weather. Can I warm up a bit? I’m frozen to the bone.’

 
‘God, sorry – of course.’ She led him to the kitchen and put water on to boil while he settled himself against the range. But as she reached for the mugs the fear took hold of her again and she began to shake uncontrollably, so that the china rattled in her hands and she had to set it down. She turned away, breathing hard, unwilling for him to see her like this, but she heard him move to stand behind her; his arms circled her and she found herself leaning into him, for the relief of having someone to hold her up. She twisted around to face him; her head sought the curve of his neck and she felt his mouth press against her hair as she inhaled his scent of rain and earth and warm skin. They stayed like this for a long while, close together. She felt the pulse in his throat quicken as his lips touched her temple and strayed down to her ear; the heat of his breath tickled her skin and her face tilted to his, unthinking, deliberately avoiding thought, opening herself to blind need. His mouth met hers and he tasted as she’d remembered, clean and boyish, though this time he seemed more confident, more certain of his desire and how to assert it. And so she let him slide his hand under her shirt and pull down her bra, slipping his thumb inside to circle the goosebumped flesh, while she reached for his belt and loosened it. His erection, when she took it in her hand, was silky, hot, pulsing. She moved her hand and his breathing grew hectic against her hair; he unzipped her jeans and she closed her eyes as he eased them down over her hips with her underwear, hardly knowing what she was doing, refusing to let her mind engage or think ahead. He turned her urgently to face the sink; she gripped the edge of it as he nudged her legs apart and pushed his way inside her, reaching around at the same time to touch her, so that they rocked together with the same gathering rhythm.

  She tried to give herself over entirely to the physical sensation, to detach herself from the thoughts crowding in, full of reproach; instead she concentrated on the mounting pressure, the slick movement of his hand and his hips together, working herself hard against his fingers so that her climax, when it came, was swift and shocking, causing her to clutch at the cold enamel of the sink and cry out as if ambushed. His was not far behind; she heard the discreet gasps of his pleasure gaining in volume and had the presence of mind to arch her neck back and whisper, ‘Not inside me,’ so that he groaned and withdrew sharply, leaving her with a sudden ache and the inevitable warm wetness against the small of her back, that turned immediately cold and clammy on the hem of her shirt. She leaned against the counter, limbs heavy, senses unravelled. In the dark window above the sink her reflection stared back at her, wild-eyed and flushed. There was a window at the other end of the kitchen too, facing the drive; neither had curtains drawn. Anyone could have seen them. Her blood hummed with the release; her throat was damp with sweat. She could not quite believe how reckless she had been; for an instant the audacity of it almost made her laugh.