Blood Tide

by Claire McGowan

  Bob had known the address like the back of his hand. It was her house. Margaret’s. But he couldn’t rush off. He had to cover this carefully. Took the report off the despatcher – said he’d file it after he called in. Not something a DS usually did but he made out it was on his way home, and no one was surprised he was going home early after finding a dead baby before it was even light.

  He didn’t even lock the car. Ran the few steps to the house. It was nearly half three. What time did they get out of school? The wee girl, Paula, she’d be back soon. She was thirteen – same age as Ian, Bob knew it exactly – and he knew Margaret finished work early to be there for her. They didn’t want her coming in to an empty house, not when her father was a Catholic RUC officer. Finding a pipe bomb on the doorstep wouldn’t be at all unusual. The house was almost dark; the curtains open though the light was fading fast and it was cold, bone-cold already for October. He went round the back. Didn’t want the neighbours to see. Hammered on the door, noticing in passing the neat lawn, the roses she’d tended round this drab little semi. ‘Margaret. Margaret!’ Maybe she wasn’t at work today. She’d told him she would take the day off. Getting ready for what she needed to do. ‘Margaret.’

  Nothing. He turned the handle, it opened silently. Not locked. What would he find? Nothing. The kitchen was clean, empty, dark. Dishes draining on the rack. He moved through the house, but no one was there, dead or alive. His heart slowed. She’d got away – or else he’d been too late, and they had taken her.

  He remembered what he’d said to her the day before – only one day, but he was already far too late. Story of his life. ‘But Margaret, if you tell PJ, you can all go away – they’ll protect you, resettle you all.’ New names, money to start a new life. Many people had taken that route, once they’d been caught touting on the terrorists.

  She’d rolled her eyes, angry. ‘And spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders? I’m not having that for Paula. Anyway, they couldn’t protect a bloody dog, that lot. I have to just get away now, and maybe when this is all over I can come back for her. She has to know nothing, and PJ too. It’s the only way.’ He knew she was referring to several cases that had been bungled. Informers, resettled on the mainland, tracked down and shot. The IRA had people everywhere. On the ferries. In the DVLA, tracking addresses. Even working for MI5. Nowhere was truly safe.

  ‘But – what do you mean? You have to tell PJ.’

  ‘I can’t.’ She shook her head.

  ‘But why?’ Bewildered. Not understanding one bit of this.

  ‘Because,’ she said, and her hand went to the waistband of her skirt. ‘I’m pregnant, Bob.’

  ‘But . . .’ Again, he didn’t understand. God help him.

  ‘PJ,’ she said. ‘You remember – a few years back?’

  He didn’t want to. But he did. PJ had taken a week off work. Surprising, because he never did, and the word round the station, the slagging when he got back, was that he was off having the snip. PJ had had a vasectomy. So that meant . . . He stared at Margaret, so lovely, her red hair about her face.

  ‘So you see,’ she said. ‘I have to get away. I can’t tell him any of this. If they don’t know anything about it, they’ll be safer. I’ll leave a note. They’ll be fine. So will you help me, please?’

  And he’d tried. He’d gone to Conlon, grovelled to a murderer for help. Now, standing in her empty kitchen, Bob found himself saying a fervent prayer that it had worked, and she had got away. But he wasn’t at all sure. It was so quiet in the house. As quiet as a tomb.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The battery on Fiona’s phone was close to dying, and she kept pushing it so the light sprang up again. Her face looked ghostly, hollowed-out. ‘Tell me again. So he went into the sea? Your colleague?’

  Guy was so much more than that word, Paula thought. So much that she couldn’t begin to explain, let alone now, to this woman she’d thought dead ten minutes ago. And why had Rory left them there? What was the delay? She was on her feet, feeling around the walls, worrying at the locked door. ‘I didn’t see him struggle. He couldn’t have just gone down. I mean . . . he’s a good swimmer.’

  Fiona was silent for a moment. She hadn’t moved to help Paula find a way out. ‘Did he hit his head when you capsized?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see.’ Paula didn’t want to think about that. ‘So it was Seamas and that lot? Covering up what happened at the plant?’

  Fiona sighed, rubbing her face. ‘It’s everyone, really. The whole bloody island. I didn’t realise how they were . . . connected. Like roots, under the soil. I didn’t realise we’d never belong here, not if we stayed our whole lives. I tried to tell Matt – he didn’t want to hear.’ In the darkness, the ghost of a smile. ‘He always saw the best in everyone.’

  Past tense. She must know. ‘Fiona. You know that he’s . . .’

  She nodded. ‘I saw it happen.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rory,’ she said simply.

  Paula felt sick – she’d trusted this man, got into his car. ‘He said you both probably fell from the lighthouse. That it was an accident, in the storm.’

  ‘Course he did. That’s why he called you in – nobody else wanted the police. They wanted to find us first, tidy up Matt’s research and hide what they’d done. But Rory – I think it was meant to look like a drowning. Like we fell, or wrecked our boat in the storm.’

  ‘I had Matt’s coat. Stones in the pockets.’

  Fiona nodded. ‘Stage a fall from the lighthouse – maybe even call it a suicide, sink him down, then bank on him not coming up for so long the coat and all the evidence would be gone. If it wasn’t for this storm . . . well, it was a solid plan.’

  ‘And you?’ They were talking in low whispers. The only sound was the lap of the waves, now calm and quiet. The Gardaí would be on their way already, surely. And why had Rory left them here, her and Fiona, on this boat? ‘What happened to you?’ she asked again. How come you’re not dead, she meant. There didn’t seem to be a good way to ask that question.

  Fiona sighed. ‘He knew I’d figured it out. I asked Rory for help, see. I told him what I’d found out, what I was worried about. Little Niamh, and Jimmy, and Andrea . . . you know about Andrea, I take it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s not true, about the psychosis. She was fine when I saw her, whatever that hospital says. It was . . . something else. Whatever’s wrong on this island.’

  ‘Lead, maybe, I heard.’

  ‘Maybe. But they don’t want to face it. Seamas and Rainbow – bloody stupid name, she’s got a mind like a steel trap – they know what’s going on, they know very well. But they’re shit-scared the plant’ll get shut down and then the island will die, and they’ll have to live in the real world. Seamas is a major shareholder, you see. Took them in exchange for the land. Fucking idiot.’ Fiona could still sound scathing, even when trapped. Paula admired that. ‘They’d rather hush it all up, lie to people about what’s going on. Blame what Andrea did on me, and explain the rest all away, cover it up, hope it stops . . .’ She sighed. ‘So Rory came to the house. Monday night. He’d taken Andrea’s medical notes, and he came to the lighthouse and—’ Her voice was swallowed up suddenly. ‘He pushed Matt off. He made me watch. I – I couldn’t save him. I tried. Then he took me.’ Silence fell again, the cold of the sea penetrating through, numbing.

  Paula paused in her search for a way out. ‘I’m so sorry, Fiona.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s all Rory. He did this.’

  ‘He said the lighthouse door was locked from the inside.’

  ‘Lies. Probably wanted to make it seem like we both jumped, killed ourselves or fell or something. What I don’t know is why I’m still here, when Matt is . . . I don’t know why he didn’t kill me too.’ The phone was fading again. She pressed it. ‘Battery won
’t last much longer. I guess he was keeping me in case the plan didn’t work. In case someone came over from the mainland and solved it all too quickly. Like you. So they have someone to pin it on. Saying the door was locked – well, I’m the only one who could have been in there if it was, aren’t I?’

  It did add up. Rory getting to the house on Monday night, not Tuesday morning. Lying about the lighthouse being locked. Rory killing Matt – pushing him off the lighthouse, staging an accident. Taking Fiona and hiding her here. Directing the search, dogging their steps, knowing all the while where Fiona was. Setting fire to the pub, with Matt’s body in it. Covering his tracks. Rory hadn’t been helpful at all, not at any point, and she could see why now. Like everyone else, he’d been engulfed in this madness. Except Fiona. ‘You’ve not been affected by it? You ate your own food?’

  ‘Always. And I only drink bottled water. I have everything brought in from outside. Matt – he made such a show of eating local, trying the fish, buying the organic veg . . .’ Her voice cracked. ‘God, he was a good man. He meant well.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Paula again. For a moment, thinking of Aidan – locked up somewhere too, only day and night and with little hope of an end, for years and years still – her own voice thickened with tears. Stop it, Maguire. If she gave in now she’d never stop bawling, from terror and anger and sorrow. ‘I told him you were pregnant. I thought it might – make a difference, if they found you somewhere. That maybe he wouldn’t hurt you.’

  Silence. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Your doctor. Dr Michaels.’

  ‘Oh.’ Fiona said nothing, letting the light of her phone fade down to nothing. Then she spoke, her voice low. ‘It’s all I have left now. I had everything, you see. I had the man, the job, the life. I had it, and I’ve lost it all now. Everything.’

  ‘What can we do?’ Paula felt a dull ache in her stomach. She too had been there, the months after Aidan went inside. Refusing to believe the life she’d wanted had been just within grasp, and all lost. Maggie was the only thing that had saved her.

  ‘We can’t get out. I’ve tried, there’s no point. It’s a strong lock.’

  ‘And what will they . . .’

  Another shrug, that Paula felt rather than saw. The phone had faded out again, and they sat in darkness. ‘If I’m gone too, it makes a better story. I guess he’ll put me in the sea. Easiest way. Drowning makes sense, on an island, in a storm. We both drowned, just a tragic accident, no one’s fault.’ She spoke so dispassionately.

  ‘And me?’ Fiona didn’t answer, and Paula didn’t need her to. The same way, surely. Down with Guy, if he – but no. She had to believe he would be OK. ‘But Fiona – Rory said something to me, just there, at the door. He said help her.’

  ‘He did?’ Paula could feel her think about it, almost sense the wheels turning in her brain. ‘Well. I guess he thinks that just because he killed my boyfriend, that doesn’t mean he’s not in with a chance.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Fiona laughed, briefly. ‘Oh. Rory . . . I think it’s fair to say he had . . . ideas about me. He wanted me. Said he loved me, once. I told him it was crazy, I was with Matt, and besides, he was just turning to any woman he could find on the island – not many, as you’ll have seen. But then when things started to go . . . weird, Rory lost it too. Said he had to have me, he’d do anything, blah blah. I found out too late. By that stage it was more a question of who hadn’t gone down with it. It was like . . . like being the only sane person in a mad world. Which makes you the mad one, surely?’

  ‘Could that – is that something that might help? If he loves you? I don’t think anyone else knows you’re here. They think you’re missing.’ The more she thought about it, it all made sense. Seamas, Rainbow, everyone else – they’d just been desperately trying to cover their tracks. They only wanted to find Matt and his research, destroy it. They didn’t want the police, but Rory had called them in, to make it all look legitimate. Cover up what he’d done.

  ‘Maybe.’ Fiona moved in the dark. ‘Where are you?’ Paula put out her hand and felt the other woman’s, ice-cold. How much it meant, in the darkness, to have another voice. To have a hand. To not be alone with it pressing all over you, cold and black as the sea.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Fiona said. ‘These people, they are bad. Rory killed Matt. He hurt me – cut me in the kitchen with the knife, when I tried to get away. He pushed Matt over, and then got his poor body from the rocks and put him in the boat. Dumped him in the sea. And he’ll do the same to us. No one else’ll help us, even if they don’t know Rory killed Matt. Seamas Fairlinn would see us both dead in a heartbeat. Anything for this fucking island.’

  ‘I won’t let that happen,’ said Paula. ‘As soon as we can we’ll call and . . .’

  ‘How?’ Fiona almost laughed. ‘There’s no signal here. Why do you think they let me keep the phone? No one’s coming to get us. No, Rory is our only chance. Will you help me?’

  Paula wasn’t sure what she was asking. She thought of the man, his freckled, guarded face, his red hair. He loved this woman. Maybe that could work. But maybe they would have to do more, hurt him, strike back. She was meant to be on the other side. The ones who helped the hurt, and the lost, and stopped the bad things from happening. But out here, with no armed officers at her back, with no Corry – with no Guy, but no she wasn’t thinking about that – what would she choose? She thought of Maggie, back home, asleep hopefully, thumb in her mouth. Of her mother, standing on that shore all those years ago. Those tears. Who or what was she even crying for? Her life was as mysterious to Paula as the depths of the ocean. ‘I’ll help,’ she said, and in the darkness Fiona’s cold hand clutched her own.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The waters had calmed now, just when Paula would have wanted them choppy. Anything to avoid setting sail, now it was light – a pale, used-up winter dawn, streaked blood-red. And just as red, the water lapped on the prow of the boat. She could see it as Rory opened the door of the cabin. She’d wanted to be ready for him, try to overpower him, but Fiona had another plan. And so she’d wait.

  Rory’s eyes skidded over her as he threw two black holdalls into the cabin. He gestured to her. ‘Up here.’ He dragged Paula up on the small deck of the boat, and Fiona followed, docile. Follow me, she’d said. So Paula went along with it, rather than fighting back. Rory started the boat and headed out to sea. She didn’t ask where he was taking them. She already knew. And whatever happened, they couldn’t let him get there. Just follow me, Fiona had said. When it happens. Just follow me. Paula was ready, tensed like a coiled spring. For what, she didn’t know.

  Rory, who seemed unperturbed by the bloody sea around them, was now ploughing the boat through it. Its white hull was stained a horrible claret colour, like when you spill red wine on a tiled floor. His face was also pale, his clothes soaked in the red. Putting out to sea, the depths of it beneath them, dark and cold. Pulling at her legs again, like when she was twelve.

  Paula’s breath caught in her lungs. The casual cruelty of what he planned to do. She thought about sinking, deep down, her feet kicking uselessly in the cold water, the feel of it pouring inside her clothes, icy fingers finding every bit of flesh. She looked to Fiona – the woman was tranquil, composed. She must have a plan. Surely she had a plan. Surely Rory did not mean to hurt Fiona, at least, if he loved her.

  Rory took the boat out to deeper water. Calmed now, bits of wreckage floating in the dark water, wood and fence posts and branches. Soon the Gardaí boat would be arriving at the island, and what would they find? A community that had torn itself apart, in the dark, and two more missing people. Maybe her body would wash up. Maybe it wouldn’t. Christ, her dad! His wife was already gone, with no answers. She couldn’t do that to him again. And Maggie. Maggie. Rory’s eyes flickered over her. She pleaded with him, silently, and he looked away. Cleared his thro
at. He slowed the boat, stopped it. With the noise of the engine gone, there was dead silence.

  Rory went to Fiona, stooped, put a hand to her face – Paula saw her shy away. ‘Are you OK? Christ, Fi, you’re pregnant! Why didn’t you . . .’

  ‘Never mind that, Rory.’ Her voice cut through him. ‘We don’t have much time. The police will be coming soon, and they’ll want to know where she is.’ She jerked her head to Paula. ‘If you want me, still . . . we need a plan.’

  Rory stepped back. ‘She knows. Everything.’

  ‘We can trust her.’ Fiona nodded to Paula. This was what she’d meant, surely, by follow me. ‘We’ll say it was Seamas did it, Seamas and Rainbow, and you had to play along to get us away safe. Then you and me . . .’

  Paula blinked; she couldn’t follow this. Did Rory really believe he had a chance with Fiona? After killing Matt?

  Rory said, ‘But she knows, Fi.’

  She was shocked by Fiona’s voice when she spoke. So convincing. ‘I know. She knows what happened. But she’ll help us, I know she will. Just take us both to the mainland and we’ll explain it all. The company, covering it up. And Matt – we can say he had an accident. There’s no evidence otherwise.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘She won’t. I know about her. Always has to do the right thing.’

  Paula thought back to her other cases – when she’d had to weigh up the right and wrong on both sides, and sometimes there was no way to tell what side the law was on, but she’d had to trust to it. Trust that it was right, even if so often the outcome was very, very wrong. She cleared her throat. ‘I just want out of this, Rory. I’ll say whatever you want. My little girl—’

  He jerked his head away, ignoring her. ‘It’s not safe. Too much of a risk.’