Written in Bone

by Simon Beckett

  ‘We need all the help we can get.’

  I wasn’t sure how much help I’d be with only one good arm, but I nodded. I’d come this far. I wasn’t going to back out now. Strachan had hurt enough people.

  Both Strachan’s Saab and Grace ’s Porsche SUV were parked outside the house. Fraser pulled up behind them—blocking them both in, I noticed. The wind clubbed at us as we climbed out of the Range Rover, as though eager for violence. The temperature had dropped, threatening to freeze the rain that was being flung wildly in all directions. Brody paused by the Saab, bending to examine its tyres. He looked at me to make sure I’d seen as well.

  They were thickly caked with mud.

  He stood back, letting Fraser take the lead as we approached the house. It towered above us, its granite walls sheer and unforgiving.

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  Seizing the iron knocker, the burly sergeant began pounding on the front door as if trying to break it down.

  From inside we could hear the dog barking, then the door was opened. Grace looked out at us from behind a security chain. She smiled, relieved when she saw who it was.

  ‘Just a second.’

  The door was closed again so she could slip off the chain. She opened it and stood back so we could enter.

  ‘Sorry about that. But after yesterday . . .’

  The bruising on her cheek somehow only accentuated her beauty. But I noticed there were shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there before the attack. An attack carried out by her own husband, to divert attention from himself. I felt my outrage towards Strachan tighten into a hard knot of resolve.

  ‘Is your husband in?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘No, afraid not. Gone off on one of his jaunts again.’

  ‘His car’s still here.’

  Grace looked startled by his brusqueness. ‘He doesn’t always take it. Why, is something wrong?’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Look, would you mind telling me what ’s going on? Why do you want to speak to Michael?’

  Fraser ignored the question. The dog continued to bark madly from the kitchen, claws scrabbling on the door.

  ‘Do you mind if we look round the house?’

  ‘But I’ve already told you he isn’t here.’

  ‘I’d still like to see for myself.’

  Her eyes flashed at his tone, and for a moment I thought she would refuse. Then she gave an angry toss of her head.

  ‘I don’t like being called a liar. But if you must.’

  ‘I’ll look in here,’ Brody told Fraser. ‘You check the outbuildings.’

  Grace watched them go, still angry but also bewildered. ‘David, why are they looking for Michael? What’s wrong?’

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  My hesitation must have been answer enough. For the first time she looked worried.

  ‘This isn’t something to do with what’s been happening, is it? The murders?’

  ‘I can’t say. I’m sorry,’ I said, hating the fact that her world was about to be shattered.

  The dog was becoming hysterical at the sound of our voices.

  ‘Oh, for God ’s sake, Oscar, be quiet!’ Grace said, impatiently opening the kitchen door and pushing the golden retriever back in. ‘Come on! Outside!’

  The dog wagged its tail, oblivious to the tension as she tugged it towards the back door in the kitchen.

  Brody came back downstairs. He gave a quick shake of his head.

  ‘Not there. Where ’s Grace?’

  ‘Quietening the dog. She ’s scared. I think she ’s started to guess why we ’re here.’

  He sighed. ‘Strachan’s got a lot to answer for. Bad enough finding out your husband ’s a murderer, let alone got a child by another woman.’ An expression of pain creased his features. ‘Christ, what the hell was Ellen thinking of . . .’

  ‘Brody,’ I said quickly, but it was too late.

  Grace stood frozen in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Mrs Strachan . . .’ Brody began.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered. She ’d gone white.

  ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to hear like that.’

  ‘No . . . You’re lying! Michael wouldn’t. He wouldn’t!’

  ‘I’m very—’

  ‘Get out! Get out!’ It was more a sob than a shout.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Brody said, quietly.

  I didn’t like leaving her like that, but there was nothing I could do, or say, that would make any difference to Grace. As we went outside, she was hugging herself, her perfect face now a stricken mask. Then Brody had closed the door behind us, shutting her off from sight.

  ‘Christ. I didn’t mean that to happen.’

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  ‘Well, it has.’ I felt unaccountably angry. ‘Let’s find Fraser.’

  I pulled my coat hood tight as we made our way towards the outbuildings. It was much colder now. The wind seemed to be trying to push us back, flinging rain in icy blasts against us. Fraser was just emerging from the barn when we rounded the side of the house.

  ‘Find anything?’ Brody asked.

  ‘You’d better see for yourselves.’

  He led us back into the barn. I’d last been here with Strachan, when Grace had been missing. Or when I’d thought she was missing, I reminded myself. He ’d known all along where she was. Fraser went to where a petrol-driven lawnmower stood in the far corner. Behind it was a large petrol container. There was no lid, only a broken plastic strap to show where one had been attached.

  ‘What ’s the betting that the top we found near the camper van is from that?’ Fraser said. ‘Remember when Strachan’s wife ’s car ran out of petrol? I’d put money that’s where he got his accelerant from to start the fires. Christ, if I get hold of the bastard . . .’

  Brody’s jaw bunched as he looked down at the container. ‘Let ’s check the boat.’

  The yacht was unlocked. It was as we ’d left it, the shattered remains of its comms still lying on the floor. But Strachan wasn’t on board.

  ‘So where the hell is he?’ Fraser asked, savagely, as we stood in the heaving cockpit. ‘Bastard could be anywhere.’

  But even as he said it I knew there was only one place Strachan would have gone. Looking across at Brody I saw that he ’d realized too.

  He was on the mountain. At the burial cairns.

  The storm was destroying itself. Roaring down from the Arctic Circle, the front had gathered speed and force as it crossed the North Atlantic. By the time it reached the UK mainland its elemental fury would be largely spent, torn apart by its own unsustainable violence. On Runa, though, it had reached its peak, building into a frenzy 278

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  as though determined to wrench the tiny island from the sea. As we clambered up the exposed slopes of Beinn Tuiridh, the wind seemed to have doubled its intensity. And the temperature had plummeted. The icy rain had turned to hail, white stones that bounced and skidded underfoot, beating down on my hood like gravel. We ’d left the car on the road as close to the foot of the mountain as we could get, and started up. It was still light, but visibility was poor and the afternoon was already passing. There was another hour, two at most, before the first dimming of twilight. And once darkness fell, then being out here could very quickly go from being dangerous to fatal.

  Despite the exertion, my hands, feet and face were numb. The cold made my injured shoulder burn with a dull, strength-sapping ache. To make matters worse, we ’d only a vague idea of where the cairns were. It had been night when I’d blindly stumbled up here, following the glow from Strachan’s fire, and I’d been delirious with exhaustion and pain. In daylight, the mountainside was a bewildering jumble of boulders and gullies. Its rock-strewn slopes were covered with formations that could be either natural or man-made.

  ‘Never been up here before,’ Brody panted. ‘But I don’t think the cairns are
very far. Shouldn’t take us too long. If we head straight up we ’re bound to come to them.’

  I wasn’t so sure. The slope was treacherous with loose stone and scree, and there was nothing resembling any sort of path. We were forced to make our own route, often finding ourselves faced with rocks that had to be either scrambled over or bypassed. If he ’d managed to carry me down here single-handed at night, Strachan was obviously stronger than he looked. And more dangerous.

  We were walking directly into the wind, bent almost double by the effort. We ’d started out close together, but as the steep gradient took its toll we ’d become strung out. Brody forged on resolutely, but with my balance impaired by my strapped arm I was finding the going harder. Not as hard as Fraser, though. Overweight and unfit, the

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  police sergeant was wheezing for breath and falling further behind with every step.

  I was considering calling for a rest when there was a clatter from behind me. Looking back I saw that Fraser had fallen. Loose rocks formed a mini-avalanche around him as he slid backwards on his hands and knees. He stayed on them, gulping air through his open mouth, too exhausted to get up.

  Ahead of us, Brody was carrying on unaware. ‘Brody! Wait!’ I called, the wind throwing my words back at me. I hurried back down to Fraser. I got my hand under his arm, and tried to pull him to his feet. He was a solid, dead weight.

  ‘Give me a minute . . .’ he gasped.

  But I could see that a minute, or even longer, wasn’t going to make any difference. There was no way he could go any further. I looked up for Brody again and saw him almost lost in the hail. Then a sudden gust peppered my eyes with shards of ice, making me avert my face.

  ‘Can you make it back to the car?’ I asked, putting my mouth close to his ear so he could hear me over the wind. He nodded, chest heaving.

  ‘You sure?’

  He waved me on irritably. I left him to it and hurried after Brody. I couldn’t see him at all now. My breathing became ragged as I tried to catch up. I kept my head down, staring at the ground directly in front of me, partly to protect my face from the wind’s bite, but mainly because I was too tired to do anything else. Whenever I looked up, hoping to catch a glimpse of Brody, the hail obscured the slope ahead like static on a TV screen.

  A stone skidded from under my foot, sending me down on to one knee. I sucked in air, not sure how much further I could go.

  ‘Brody!’ I shouted, but the only answer was the shriek of the gale.

  I clambered to my feet again. It was too exposed to stay where I was. I had to decide whether to carry on or follow Fraser back down, 280

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  and as I stood there I realized that the tumbles of rock nearby were oddly symmetrical. I’d been so focused on catching up with Brody that I’d not taken notice of the surrounding landscape until now. I was standing amongst the burial cairns.

  But there was no sign of Brody. I told myself that he couldn’t have missed them, that he wouldn’t have gone straight past, even though that was what I’d almost done myself. As I looked round for him an eddy in the wind created a gap in the swirling hail, like a curtain being drawn back. It only lasted for a moment, but while it did I saw a larger stone structure further off along the slope. My boots skidded on the hail-covered slope, carving ruts in the sodden turf as I went to take a closer look. The structure was like a round stone hut, partially caved in. Just outside it was the remains of a campfire. The ashes were cold, already half covered with hail, but looking at them I saw the flames leaping up, and remembered the hooded figure emerging into the firelight the night I’d been lost. Strachan’s words came back to me. The broch ’s a good place to think . . . I love the idea that someone would have been sitting up there by a fire two thousand years ago. I like to think I’m keeping the tradition . . . I looked around, not really expecting to see either Fraser or Brody, but hoping all the same. But I might have been the only living soul on the mountainside.

  Bracing myself against the wind, I edged closer to the hut. The entrance yawned in front of me. I peered into it, trying to sense if anyone was inside. All I saw was blackness. Just do it. Crouching down, I ducked through the low opening.

  Silence draped around me like a blanket as the wind was cut off. It was pitch black, the air heavy with loam and age. It was cramped inside, barely high enough to allow me to stand. But no one jumped out at me. As my eyes acclimatised, I made out cold stone walls and bare soil underfoot. Whatever this was, it looked as though it had stood empty and unused for millennia.

  Then, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a small, pale blur. I bent down to examine it. Some of the stones had tumbled from the inner wall, forming a small hollow. Inside was a half-melted candle

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  stub, surrounded by dirty yellow pools of solidified wax from countless predecessors. I’d found Strachan’s hide. But where was Strachan? I straightened, and as I did the grey light coming from the entrance suddenly dimmed. I spun round, heart banging, as a shape rose from the shadows behind me.

  ‘Hello, David,’ Strachan said.

  CH APTER 26

  I DIDN’T SPEAK. My mind still seemed stalled, robbing me of any speech or movement. Strachan took another step away from the wall, so he was silhouetted in the entrance. He held a knife down by his side, its blade catching the light from behind him.

  ‘Managed to find your way up here again, eh? Told you you’d find it interesting.’

  His voice echoed flatly in the confines of the broch. He didn’t come any closer, but he was between me and the only way out. I tried not to look at the knife. Our breath steamed in the small chamber. His eyes looked hunted and sunken, the dark stubble blue-black against the pallor of his face. He tilted his head, listening to the wind howling outside.

  ‘Do you know what “Beinn Tuiridh” means? It’s Gaelic for “Moaning Mountain”. Pretty apt, I always thought.’

  His tone was conversational, as though he ’d come here for a stroll. He ran his hand across the stone wall. The other, holding the knife, remained at his side.

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  ‘This place isn’t as old as the cairns. Probably only a thousand years or so. You get broch s like this all across the islands. I’ve never been able to make up my mind if it was built here because of the cairns or in spite of them. Why build a watchtower in a graveyard? Unless they were watching over the dead, I suppose. What do you think?’

  When I didn’t answer he gave a small smile. ‘No, I don’t suppose you’re here out of archaeological interest, are you?’

  I found my voice. ‘Maggie Cassidy’s dead.’

  He was still studying the hard stones. ‘I know.’

  ‘Did you kill her?’

  Strachan stood poised for a moment with his hand on the wall. He dropped it with a sigh.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Duncan? And Janice Donaldson?’

  There was no surprise at hearing the prostitute ’s name. He just nodded, and any last doubt I might have had vanished.

  ‘ Why? ’

  ‘Does it matter? They’re dead. You can’t bring them back.’

  He seemed shrunken. I’d expected to hate him, but I felt more confused than anything.

  ‘You must have had a reason!’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  I tried to see any sign of madness in his eyes. They just looked tired. And sad.

  ‘Did Janice Donaldson blackmail you, was that it? Was she threatening to tell Grace?’

  ‘Leave Grace out of this,’ he warned, his voice grown suddenly hard.

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘All right, she was blackmailing me. I’d been fucking her, and when she realized who I was she got greedy. So I killed her.’ He sounded listless, as though none of this had any real bearing on him.

  ‘And what about Duncan and Maggie?’

  ‘They got in the way.
’

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  ‘That’s it? You killed them just for that?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it! I butchered them all like pigs, and I got a thrill out of it! Because I’m a sick, twisted bastard! Is that what you wanted to hear?’

  His voice was thick with self-contempt. I tried to keep mine steady. ‘So now what?’

  As we ’d been talking, I’d been trying to slowly work my injured arm out of the sling under my coat. Even if I managed it I didn’t give much for my chances if he attacked me, but I’d have none at all if I was one-handed.

  He was backlit by the light from the entrance, half in shadow as he answered. ‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t make this any worse for yourself than it is already,’ I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. ‘Think about Grace.’

  He took a step towards me. ‘I told you to leave her out of this!’

  I made myself stay where I was, resisting the impulse to back away. ‘Why? You attacked her! Your own wife!’

  There was real pain in his eyes. ‘She took me by surprise. I was in the house when the three of you called round. I guessed why you’d come, and I knew you’d be back. I only wanted to stop you using the yacht’s radio, to give myself more time to think. But the bloody dog knew I was down there, and when I heard Grace coming into the cockpit, I . . . I just spun round and backhanded her. I didn’t mean to hit her so hard, but I couldn’t let her see it was me!’

  ‘So then you staged everything? Put her through all that?’

  ‘I did what I had to do!’

  But he sounded shamed. I pushed on, sensing an advantage.

  ‘You’re not going to get off the island, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Probably not.’ He had an odd smile on his face. Seeing it, I felt suddenly cold. ‘But I’m not going to give myself up, either.’

  He lifted the knife. Its blade glinted silver as he held it up, considering it.

  ‘Do you want to know why I came up here?’ he began, but I never heard his reason.

  Suddenly a bulky shape flew into him from behind. There was a