Blood Tide

by Claire McGowan

  Guy was helping her, his hands warm and capable as she tugged at the zips. ‘It’s OK. You’re OK. Who would have taken it off him? We have to preserve the evidence, surely everyone knows that.’

  ‘I don’t know – what’s this?’ The coat had fallen to the ground, with a strange cracking sound.

  Guy stooped to it. ‘There’s something in the pockets, maybe.’ He thought about it for a second. ‘Ah well. It’s been totally contaminated anyway.’ He undid the Velcro pocket of the jacket and pulled out a handful of something, rolling it in the palm of his hand.

  ‘What is it?’ Paula squinted in the glaring lights, bright like an operating theatre, or the lights they had in their interrogation rooms in Ballyterrin. He didn’t answer, but she could see, because the light hid nothing – it was a handful of stones. The pockets of Matt’s coat were full of round grey pebbles, like the ones you found on the beaches of the island.

  Fiona

  ‘Matt,’ I said. ‘Matt. Baby. Are you listening to me?’

  He didn’t answer. He had the binoculars again, peering out over the sea from the kitchen window. He was supposed to be cooking, but nothing was ready, the counters still empty and clean from where I’d wiped them last night. I tried to think when I’d last seen Matt eat anything. He’d been up the night before again, retching into the loo, nothing but dry bile. I’d run through the diagnostics in my head, weary – ulcer? Food poisoning? Knowing all the while it wasn’t that.

  He didn’t turn round. ‘Can you see something out there?’

  I looked. I don’t know why. There’s nothing there, there’s never been anything there. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The water, it’s dark . . . I think it’s coming.’

  ‘What’s coming?’

  ‘The blood tide.’

  I opened my mouth, and then was silenced by a sudden chill of fear, like a dousing with cold water. The blood tide? Matt, the scientist, who used to pore over the ordinance survey maps, snort with derision every time an advert made a pseudo-scientific claim. Here he was, talking like a madman. ‘Do you want some dinner?’ I tried. ‘I’ll even make you some fish, if you like.’ Usually I hated to touch the slimy dead things. But I’d do it for him.

  This is how you go in the end. I hated it. I hated how much I was willing to give up, just for the chance to hold onto him, by one desperate hanging thread.

  Matt was still looking. Holding my breath, trying to be nice, I opened the drawer and took out a knife to gut the fish with. Matt had caught it the day before, and it had been stuffed into our salad drawer in the fridge, leaking a little pale pink blood, its mouth open and eyes staring. I did it with my bare hands. Look, I will do anything for you. I will handle dead things. If you can just – stop? Just stop being mad, and come back to me. ‘I think I can see something.’

  There was nothing there. Maybe a shadow on the water from the clouds, that was all. ‘What did you do at work today?’ I said. Like we were still in our flat in London, with the sounds of traffic outside. Here there was nothing but the wind and the cries of the birds.

  He didn’t answer. That morning, I had peed on a stick that told me I was ovulating. First time in six months, what with all the stress and the Anika business. I knew there was a four-hour window for ovulation, not much more. And under my work clothes – I was still dressing like I was in inner London – I had on sexy underwear. Red, lacy. Bought at the House of Fraser before we left. A woman never feels so pathetic as when she’s put on sexy underwear and realises it will not be noticed. I’d even wondered for a while if there was someone else. That mousy little scientist from the plant, who thinks I don’t see her watching him when we’re all in Dunorlan’s. That, I could understand, I could fight. But this – how could I beat something when I didn’t even know what it was? Something welled up in me – anger, terror, tears. ‘Will you put those down! I’m making dinner, I came all this way for you, and you can’t even look at me! Am I invisible or something?’

  Matt turned to me, saw the fish. His eyes widened in fear. ‘Don’t touch that! Don’t touch it!’ It was only instinct, I know that. Paranoia will do that to you, trigger the fight or flight parts of the cortex. But he knocked it out of my hand, and it flopped on the floor, the knife clattering beside it, and I looked at my fingertips and saw they were covered in red. Matt had hurt me. Matt had injured me, drawn blood. And OK, he didn’t mean it, but . . . isn’t that how it starts? You explain away. You excuse one thing, then another, and it’s like a boat with a leak in it and you can never bail out fast enough, and before you know it you are sinking, drowning and gone. Being in a relationship that’s dying is like any other kind of ship going down. All the advice is to get off, fast as you can, and not be sucked down, but still we can’t take it in. We can’t believe the ground that was under our feet a minute ago, solid as land, can suddenly disappear.

  Matt hadn’t even noticed I was bleeding. He was still staring out that damn window, at nothing. I bent, shaking, and picked up the knife. It was sharp – I made sure they were always sharpened, as it speeds up cooking. I even had a little knife-sharpener Matt’s mum had got me for Christmas. God knows what she meant by that. I suddenly thought – that much blood, the spot or two on my fingers, wouldn’t convince anyone. But I could easily have been hurt more. Matt wouldn’t notice if he’d stabbed me. And that’s when I had the idea. If I just pressed the knife against my skin, held it to where the veins run close, there would be more blood. There would be a scar, a wound. Something I could show people – show Rory – and say look, look what happened, now can you help me, please? Can someone help me?

  I know. I know how this sounds. But you can’t imagine it, how it is, when everyone and everything seems to be sinking around your ears. Right before a wave crashes on the shore, there’s a moment where it bellies out, where it seems to almost stand on end, defying gravity. I always loved that moment. Full of promise, full of power and anticipation. However, when you’re at that moment, that pinnacle, the crash is always just behind. I know that now.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘Get out of my fecking way!’ A voice bellowed out from the next room, making Paula jump and drop some of the pebbles. They clattered on the lino floor, with a noise like scrabbling spiders.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Guy was already moving to the door, motioning to her to stay where she was. He opened the flimsy partition and Paula heard the babble of voices, a woman screaming, a child crying.

  ‘. . . taking our beds . . .’

  ‘. . . here first . . .’

  ‘. . . fecking move yourself!’ She edged over to see two men facing off over a camp bed, both burly and red-faced, with that hardened, weathered look all the islanders seemed to have. The row appeared to be over which family had been in possession of the camp bed first. She saw Guy prepare to shoulder the burden yet again, be the one to keep the peace. A born policeman.

  ‘Sir, is there a problem?’ He walked into the room, deliberately slow, holding himself straight and confident.

  No one seemed to notice him at first. They had switched to shouting in Irish now, and the woman was still screaming, a harsh, angry sound, and more of the children were crying, including the toddler she held in her arms. Paula followed Guy out. She recognised faces in the room. Niamh, her mother and siblings, watching in fear. Sammy Fairlinn and his mother. Seamas was nowhere to be seen. Bridget from the post office and Brendan the fisherman, the brawling couple from the pub. Colm the barman, and an older woman in a grey tracksuit she assumed was his mother. Everyone was silent, watching the men shout at each other. Gobs of spit flew from their mouths and one already had bruised knuckles.

  Guy moved forward some more. ‘Come on now, you’re scaring the kids. I’m sure we can sort this out—’

  ‘You shut your hole. You’ve no jurisdiction here! A fecking Brit.’

  ‘
Just get out, get out! Mind your own fecking business!’ Both men were now shouting, united in their aggression towards Guy. This lasted only a moment, and then they began struggling with each other, in a way that was almost comical, like children wrestling. Except it wasn’t. Paula was suddenly afraid for them, all of them, when Grainne Fairlinn stepped forward. Paula saw she was still wearing her pink dressing gown, a man’s coat draped around her shoulders, as if someone had placed it there.

  ‘Stop this now. Stop it! Can you not see what’s happening? Can you not see?’ She spun around, so the coat slipped to the ground, unnoticed. In her pink gown, she held her arms out, like a priestess in nylon. ‘God help you both, Michael Reilly, Patrick Og. Look to your children and mind your business. There’s a storm coming! Can you not hear it? Can you not see it? It’s the outsiders we need to fight. Not ourselves!’

  The room had fallen deadly silent. Then one of the men, Patrick Og, Paula thought he was, suddenly turned to Guy, and jabbed at him with a vicious punch, catching him on the side of his face. ‘Get the fuck out. You don’t belong here.’ A small cry broke out of Paula’s mouth as his gaze turned on her too. ‘And you too. You meddling fucking bitch.’

  Guy flinched, but righted himself. ‘Sir, I have to inform you I’m a police officer and we won’t tolerate—’

  Then the one Grainne had called Michael Reilly – a relation to Jimmy, maybe? – raised an arm – weedy, slight, but it seemed to make no difference – and caught Patrick Og a terrible blow across the face, so hard he staggered and fell, and his wife screamed again and so did the children, and a cry went up all around the room, a dreadful sound of shrieking and terror over the moan of the wind, and Paula found she was rooted to the spot, unable to look away, until she realised Guy was at her side, pulling her arm. ‘We have to get out of here. Come on. Now.’

  ‘You have to wear something!’

  ‘I’m OK!’ Paula’s face was frozen. The wind seemed to be howling right through her fleece, and she’d left Matt’s coat at the community centre. They were trudging over the beach, the wind as abrasive as sandpaper from the particles it picked up, roaring up from the sea. Paula still wasn’t sure what they were doing. They’d left the community centre while they could, sneaking out the fire door while everyone else was shouting and fighting, and now they were just walking, into the night. But where would they go? Where was safe?

  ‘You’re not OK! Look, I’ve got my jumper. Take the coat.’

  She protested, but he already had it off and was draping it round her shoulders. She took it gratefully, feeling the warmth from his body. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. We can’t go back to that place, it’s not safe. Everyone is – Jesus, I don’t know what’s wrong with them.’

  Paula didn’t want to think about it. ‘There’s the plant. Enviracorp. It’s mostly empty now but there might be someone there. I don’t know who else we can trust. Not the Fairlinns, for sure.’ She shuddered again, thinking of the stones in the pocket of the coat. That someone must have put there to weigh the body down. Not an accident, then. A murder.

  ‘Fairlinn saw you in that coat,’ Guy said. She wished there’d been time to grab it from the community centre. Something to cling to, to show they weren’t mad.

  Paula felt a chill beneath the aching cold in her face and hands. Had someone really tried to kill them, set that fire to get rid of them as well as poor Matt’s body? And they were on this island with nowhere to go, no way off. ‘Come on. It’s another mile or so.’

  The beach seemed endless. Paula could hardly see ahead of her with the rain and wind, the sand whipping in her eyes. The waves broke on the shore, licking over the high-water line. The storm on its way back in. After a while she realised Guy was talking to her. She lowered the hood of his coat. ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a boat!’ he shouted. ‘Look, on the shore!’

  She could see it too, bumping in the shallow water, a small wooden dinghy with its hull pointing up to the stormy sky. Capsized, by the looks of it. ‘Is there a name?’ But even as she called she knew what it would be. The red sign left no doubt – the London Lass. Matt and Fiona’s boat. Guy was trudging towards it, struggling to turn it over. Paula had a sudden awful thought – what if Fiona was in the boat, also dead and cold, both of them silenced forever by this island? What had they known? ‘Can you get it turned?’

  She wasn’t sure Guy could hear her over the wind, but he had managed to tip the boat up slightly. He pulled out his phone and turned on the light function. The boat was empty – no dead body. Paula let out some of her breath. But Guy was still pointing the light closer to the wet wood, warped from the sea, and she could see now on the bottom of the boat was a splash of something else, something dark and red and stinking, the same smell she’d noticed in the boatshed. Blood. Matt and Fiona’s boat had blood in it.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The gates of Enviracorp stood open, but the main building was dark, deserted. The perimeter fence ran the whole way along it, warning signs posted up. Beyond they could see equipment, diggers and vats for the seaweed, but all still and empty.

  ‘Should we go in?’ Paula realised she was whispering, even though the wind would drown out any sound.

  ‘Isn’t it locked?’ said Guy.

  She pushed on the plate-glass door of the reception and it opened, the door shoved inwards by the wind with a crash. ‘Guess not.’ They went in, and Paula was grateful for the temporary shelter. The place felt warm, sealed off. ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Is anyone here?’ The cold fingers which had crept down her spine were still there. Blood in the boat. The body burned away. And now here, not a light against the pressing dark of night.

  A tapping sound, growing louder. Heels, running down the corridor. Paula realised who it must be just a moment before Ellen burst into reception, her hair wild, still in her suit and shirt from earlier. What was she doing there so late? ‘Oh! Dr Maguire! Er, hi! What are you doing here? We’re closed, I’m afraid.’

  Paula realised she didn’t know how to explain why they were there, in the dead of night. The pub had burned down, and they were basically on the run from the islanders? And despite the fact she was fairly sure Rainbow had some kind of role in Matt and Fiona’s fate, the older woman at least seemed sane, and she didn’t know if she could say the same about anyone else here any more? ‘Um . . . I wanted to see Dr Monroe. I know she probably won’t be here this late, but . . .’

  Ellen blinked. ‘Oh, well . . . it is kinda late, I don’t know if she’s . . .’

  Guy stepped forward. Policeman voice again. ‘Ma’am, I’m from the police. If your boss is here, we’d really like to speak to her.’

  Ellen threw panicked glances between the corridor she’d come from and the door behind them. Then she seemed to sag. ‘Look, she’s down there. In her office. I have to go.’

  ‘Wait!’

  She was already wrestling with the door, trying to get it open against the push of the wind. Paula saw Ellen’s face was red and damp, and she didn’t think just from the cold. ‘I need to go home! I can’t do this!’

  ‘But wait – what’s going on? Where’s Dara?’

  ‘He’s – oh God, I don’t know. He’s gone off. And I’m not sitting around here. I’m taking a boat. It’s not worth it, OK?’

  Paula caught the door, helping her. ‘But Ellen – something isn’t right here. What’s going on? Why’s everyone so scared? You know something’s up.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’ Her hand shook as she fought the wind for control of her russet curls. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. The bosses have just left me in it – so I’m leaving. Screw this.’ She finally got the door open, then shouted back at Paula. ‘You should leave too. Get off while you can. Hide out somewhere till it’s light. That’s what I’m gonna do.’

  ‘We can’t just g
o! There’s something wrong here.’

  Ellen’s face was hidden by her hair, and Paula could barely hear her. ‘They don’t want us. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘But why? Is it the plant? Is something getting into the ecosystem?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ellen turned away towards the company docks, struggling in her heels, and yelled into the wind. ‘Look, we didn’t know. I swear it. We didn’t know.’ And she was gone.

  Paula and Guy went down the corridor, their feet clanging on the stamped metal floor, echoing in the silent building. Everything was empty, labs, common room, offices. Paula was trying to remember the layout. ‘I don’t know where . . . Jesus!’

  ‘Only me,’ said Rainbow Monroe, materialising out of a dark doorway. She was still in her black waterproofs and practically invisible in the shadows. But her voice was steady. ‘Sorry if I scared you. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in. Seeing as we shut up hours ago.’

  Paula could feel Guy at her back, inches away. ‘We just saw Ellen and we thought – we need to speak to you, Dr Monroe. This is my colleague, DI Brooking.’

  Rainbow stepped forward to shake his hand, and Paula felt herself calm down a little. This was fine. This was normal. Just a workplace after hours. Ellen was just frazzled, a long way from home, tired out.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s so dark,’ said Rainbow. ‘Our generator hasn’t kicked in. Another reason we sent everyone home so early. I’m afraid we get a lot of power cuts here. I take it you want to speak to me about poor Matt? Come in.’

  Her office was also warm, lit by a dim storm lantern, one large window looking out on the stormy sea, lashed by rain. The roar of it penetrated even the thick walls of the plant. The office was full of books and framed pictures of Rainbow with various worthies, meeting the Irish president, receiving an award. There was also one of her in a wetsuit, many years younger, hugging a huge orca in a pool. The sun slicing bright, a world away from this place of grey. She sat behind her large mahogany desk, pushing her hair back. ‘I must apologise, first of all. I wish we could have helped more in the search for Matt and Fiona. But with the weather, and staff shortages . . . Anyway, poor Matt’s been found now. If we can do anything for his family, we’ll of course help in any way we can. Let’s hope Fiona is found too. Put the whole thing to rest, at least.’