“Night Poppy. Glad your parents aren’t murderers.”
He tucked the notebook inside his jersey and entered his own home.
Edward Stapleton was sitting by the roaring fire reading a book. He glanced up as his son entered.
“You’re late tonight.”
“Sorry dad.”
“So long as you get up for school tomorrow.”
“I will.” Gene hesitated before going into his bedroom. “Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Do you like it here?”
His father waited much longer to reply than Gene expected.
“It’s my home.”
“Don’t you miss all the stuff out there in the world?”
“I never wanted to work in some office, wearing a suit and tie. And then what? An evening sitting on my ass watching TV?”
“No one has ever left the island, have they?” Gene persisted. “Does everyone feel the same?”
“I suppose. Here we’re in control of our own destiny. That’s a great thing. Underappreciated, if you ask me.”
He slammed shut the book, folded large hands across it and studied his son.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get a chance to travel when you’re old enough. I don’t expect you to stay here forever.”
“I know. Night dad.”
“Night, son.” Edward gave him a half salute before dropping his hand back to the book on his lap. “I love you.”
Gene paused on his way to the bedroom. His father was a good man, but emotional declarations were not something he was prone to.
“I love you too dad.”
Once Gene had closed his bedroom door, Edward Stapleton slowly opened his book and frowned.
Crushed between the pages were half a dozen ants.
Lying in bed that night, Gene found he was unable to sleep. Instead he kept thinking about the list he had made of the islanders.
There was something odd about it. Nothing to do with murder suspects. He was sure of that.
No.
There was something strange about the list itself.
The Houdini Killer
All depends on me
As long as I live, I shall think only of victory
I shall annihilate everyone who is opposed to me
- Adolph Hitler
10
Kirkfallen Island 2000
The sky was slate grey when Gene left for school. It was hard to tell if the island was sheltering under one unending cloud, as usual, or if the firmament had simply abandoned colour for the duration of day.
Gene’s father was digging the frosty ground on the hill above their croft, sleeves rolled up over his burly arms, despite the cold. It was a sight Gene had witnessed on many mornings but, for the first time, the lone silhouette seemed dwarfed by the monochrome majesty of the island.
Gene had always been a curious type but that curiosity had always been focused on that great unknown – the world outside Kirkfallen. It occurred to him that he rarely asked any questions about the island itself.
Now he had begun, he was finding it hard to stop.
In the prefabricated school hut, he daydreamed through morning lessons. The Kirkfallen children were all taught together, with the elder children helping to educate the younger ones. This system had an advantage for the older kids as they were only required to attend school in the mornings. In the afternoons they were supposed to study by themselves, using the considerable resources of the information hut. Sometimes they did – Millar especially. Sometimes they were needed to help their parents tend to the land or do repairs. Occasionally they played truant.
Today Gene practically dragged Poppy and Millar to the information hut. He shut the door behind them and turned on the single barred electric fire.
“This is going to be a different kind of lesson,” he said enigmatically. “What do we usually study when we’re in here?”
“All sorts of stuff.” Poppy said. “Maths. Spelling. Whatever we’re set on our worksheets.”
“What about books?” Gene turned instinctively to Millar. “What do you read about?”
“A lot of novels. Science. History.”
“What about Fallen’s history? When do we learn about that?”
“It doesn’t have one.” Poppy gave a dismissive shrug. “There used to be some kind of naval base here but it was abandoned years ago. The place was uninhabited when our families arrived.”
She sounded like she was reciting a set text - which, in fact, she was.
“So where are our relatives?” Gene persisted. “Our aunts and uncles?”
Again Poppy reeled off the answer she had always been given.
“The families who come here are carefully chosen. We haven’t got any close relatives. Otherwise it would be too hard for everybody concerned to commit themselves to such an isolated place.”
“We’ve got grandparents, though.” Gene had spent most of the night pondering life on the island and now his misgivings came pouring out. “Mine are both dead but surely some of the adults have parents who want to visit?”
“My grandparents are dead too.” Poppy said.
“And mine,” Millar added slowly, doubt creasing his face.
“I tell you something else.” Gene unfolded a piece of paper. “I made a new list of everyone who lives here and, this time, I put in the children and their ages.
He spread the sheet on the large table where they studied.
Kirkfallen Residents.
The Stapletons plus Gene (14)
The Watts plus Millar (14)
The Ainsworths plus Poppy (14)
The Golds plus Marcie (12)
The Ng’s plus Mona (12)
The McCombies plus Bob (12)
The Hayashidas plus Noriko (12)
The Nhols plus Talasa (10)
The Abrahms plus Ben (10)
The Cutters plus Liam (10)
The Wolpers plus Gemma (10)
The De Guglielmos plus Megan (8)
The Hamdallahs plus Faisal (8)
The Henrys plus Sarah (8)
The Luptiks plus Jakub (8)
The Nevilles plus Kyle (6)
The McMillans plus Ruairidh (6)
The Kitts plus Jordan (6)
The Von Speers plus Beth (6)
The Jodes plus Marius (4)
The Khadums plus Michael (4)
The Olsens plus Erin (4)
The Singhs plus Sagar (4)
The Orbisons (deceased)
“Reads like the debating chamber of the United Nations.” Millar Watt was always ready to display knowledge of a world he had never seen.
“Twenty three families, each with one child.” Gene tapped the piece of paper. “But the children’s ages are all in bunches of four, with a two year gap between each group. What’s more, the birthdays in each age bracket are all roughly four months apart, with no exceptions.”
He checked the paper again to make sure his calculations were correct, even though he’d studied it a dozen times already.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of a weird coincidence?”
“Yeah. But that’s probably all it is. After all, the Orbisons didn’t have kids.”
“I think being dead pretty much rules the Orbisons out as inhabitants.” Gene wouldn’t give in. “But one child each? How come nobody had another, once they got to the island?”
“You’re overreacting,” Millar said. “You need a good spread of ages to have a thriving community. So our parents only allow groups of families with one child onto the island and they don’t have another. Think of what a burden that would be!”
“Imagining two of you, it suddenly makes perfect sense,” Poppy chimed.
“And whose rules are they following?” Gene said. “Your parents? My parents? You notice we don’t seem to have any leaders in this community. No kind of government. I mean, who really runs this place?”
“There’s a book on one of these shelves about conspiracy theories and the weirdos who belie
ve in them.” Millar waved an arm at the bookshelf. “You want to have a read of that, nutty boy.”
And it hit Gene. A simple, ridiculous fact.
“Why does an island in the middle of nowhere, with limited shelf space in its library, have a book making fun of conspiracy theories?”
Millar opened his mouth to make a smart retort. Then he shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m proposing a new kind of homework.”
Gene looked at the books lining the shelves, wishing now that he had been as diligent in acquiring knowledge as Millar. It struck him that he didn’t know nearly enough about anything.
“I want you to have a real think about what’s always been right under our noses. This island and the people on it.”
“Better than maths, I guess.”
“Think about what?” Poppy still sounded unsure.
“Anything odd about this place. Anything that ever niggled at you.”
“I thought we were supposed to be solving a murder?” Millar tilted his chair back and put his hands behind his head. “Unless you think it was a CIA plot to cover up some UFO hidden at Jackson Head.”
“Could you pack more initials into one sentence, brainbox?”
“It’s just a feeling,” Gene said. “This is the right way to go about it.”
“Sure.” Millar tilted his hat back and grinned. “It’s all a plot by Agatha Christie.”
“Who’s Agatha Christie?” Poppy asked innocently.
“She invented the atomic bomb.”
“Cool! That’s one in the eye for anyone who thinks women are dumb.” The girl wafted a hand theatrically at Gene’s list. “And I’m smart enough to have spotted something you didn’t. Our birthdays are much closer together then the other groups of kids.”
She thought for a moment.
“Oh! And there’s only three of us.”
“Maybe one family left.”
“Don’t think so.” Millar had obviously appointed himself Devil’s Advocate in the discussion. “My dad says nobody’s ever left the island.”
“Mine too.” Gene folded up the list and stuck it in his pocket.
“But the Orbisons certainly did.”
11
Kirkfallen Island 2000
At dinner, Gene wasted no time with his awkward mealtime question. Over the years, it had become a ritual in the Stapleton household and his parents expected it.
“Dad. What would happen if you and mom got divorced?”
His father’s egg covered fork paused half way to his lips. Annie Stapleton gave a small cough.
“Why? Do we look like we’re going to get divorced?”
“No. But what would happen? Would you leave the island?”
“Not at all,” his father replied calmly. I’d build another croft next door and you could spend the weekends there.”
“No need to make fun.” Gene bit into his toast, plotting his next move. “Don’t people out in the world get divorced all the time?”
“Then I guess everyone is better off here.”
“And why are there no boats?” The boy changed tack as quickly as any sailor. “Our staple diet is fish so why do we always catch them from the shore? Wouldn’t it be easier out on the ocean?”
“It would.” Edward cut his toast into neat soldiers. “But we’re terrible fishermen, Gene. That takes a lifetime to learn and the Atlantic Ocean is a treacherous place.”
Gene’s mother looked down at her plate and his father arranged the slices carefully in a circle.
“We had boats once,” Annie Stapleton said softly.
“We did?”
Edward shot a look at his wife then sighed and put down his fork.
“We did. The Kirkfallen community was founded using a government grant, as you know. It was a sort of… anthropological experiment. To see if a small group could sustain a village in the middle of nowhere by using alternative farming and fishing methods. Experimental fertilizers. New kinds of pesticide. Nets made of polymer fibres.”
Gene nodded, although he had heard the story a dozen times.
“Funding dried up when the government administration changed, but we’re still here,” his father continued, with a tinge of pride. “So I guess you could say the project worked.”
“There were only a few families when we began.” Gene’s mother carried on the original thread of the conversation. “Ourselves, the Ainsworths, the Watts and the Waltons.”
“Who are the Waltons?” This was a part of the Kirkfallen story Gene had never heard. “There aren’t any Waltons here.”
“Not anymore.” His father pushed the plate away, no longer hungry. “At the time, we were given what were thought the essentials to survive on a remote island. Including three small boats.”
“To fish with,” his mother added, unnecessarily.
“One summer’s day. A beautiful sunny day it was, the Waltons went out on the water. Just for a break from the toil. Nobody saw any harm in it…”
His father’s story petered out and he motioned forlornly at his wife.
“It was a perfectly calm sea.” Gene’s mother folded her hands on her lap. “So they took their daughter with them.”
“How come you never mentioned this before?”
“Not now, boy,” his father cautioned.
“The currents off the west coast are deadly and a sudden squall sprang up.” Annie’s voice dried up and she took a sip of tea. “Nobody could have guessed.”
“We found the wreckage of the boat on the other side of Pittenhall Ridge. Strewn across the rocks. That’s where all the treacherous currents lead.”
That’s where the Orbisons died. Gene thought immediately. But he held his tongue. His father got up from the table and put on his jacket.
“They were our friends, Gene.”
He patted his pockets, more for something to do than because he had to check his possessions. He didn’t need anything on Kirkfallen. Not keys. Not money. Not identification.
“We’re not sailors,” he said gruffly. “We don’t go out on the sea.”
He ruffled the boy’s hair and hurried out the door.
“The boats were taken away after that. Too many children around. Too much temptation.”
His mother also rose and began clearing away the dishes, despite the fact that her own meal was only half finished.
“That’s the problem with living in isolation.” She seemed suddenly agitated, looking about for something else to wash. “When a storm comes there’s nothing you can do but ride it out.”
Annie Stapleton plonked the dishes in the sink. Her back was to the boy and she wiped furiously at the greasy plates.
“But you never know who it will take.”
A shiver ran up the teenager’s spine.
Something in the way she spoke made the phrase sound more like a premonition than an observation.
12
Edinburgh 2000
Apathy Amazon Walton leaned her elbows on the sill of the living room window and traced her strange name on the dirty glass. Home was the seventh floor of a high rise block on the outskirts of Edinburgh and the city’s rooftops glistened like big, dirty cobbles stretching into the gloom.
On the coffee table lay a copy of the Scotsman newspaper. There was nothing good on TV, so she’d tried reading it while she waited for her mother to come home. But every page seemed to hold something depressing.
Freak Accident Kills Aberdeen Family
A suspected gas leak killed a family while they slept in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Andrew Flintheart, 36, Aiki Flintheart, 30, and their daughter Elspeth 15, were overcome by fumes from a broken gas pipe in their semi-detached bungalow.
Fire services responded to a call by an anonymous passer-by who smelt gas outside the suburban home, at 32 Westmoreland Drive, but were too late to save the family.
“An investigation has begun into the deaths,” said a spokesman for Aberdeenshire police, “But all ini
tial signs point to this being a tragic accident.”
She heard the front door swing open and, seconds later, her mother barged into the living room, a straining Tesco’s shopping bag hanging from each arm. A strand of hair had come loose from her tight bun and hung down over one eye.
Emily Walton looked tired. But then, she always looked tired. She kicked her daughter’s foot in greeting and sniffed the air.
“You been smoking?”
“I don’t smoke, mum.”
“Yeah, but you turn sixteen tomorrow. That’s when I started.”
“You got me a present yet?” Apathy inspected the bags, looking for any recognisable bulge.
“Two packs of Marlboro Lights. It was buy one, get one free.”
Emily lugged the groceries into the kitchen and set them on the table. Apathy could hear her putting her purchases away, then the pop of a bottle being opened. When Emily returned she held a large glass of wine in one hand. She sank down on the sofa next to her daughter and let out a heartfelt sigh.
“Hard day, mum?”
“No. I just love unjamming the photocopier after the boss has made multiple pictures of his bum.”
Emily lifted the glass to her lips and drained it in one go. Apathy was a little taken aback. Her mother got up again and marched back into the kitchen. When she returned she had two full glasses and a half empty bottle wedged under one arm.
“Want to split this with me?”
This time her daughter couldn’t conceal her astonishment.
“You getting me started young?”
“Don’t say that.” Emily handed her a glass anyway. Apathy took a tentative sip and screwed up her face.
“Yuk. Got a cigarette?”
“What?”
“I’m joking.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Emily laughed humourlessly. “Kids.”
Apathy fidgeted uncomfortably. Her mother was a melancholy type but she rarely looked this disconsolate. Emily took another large gulp of wine and pulled a Marlboro from the packet on the coffee table. She lit it and flicked the match at the ashtray. It missed and landed on the floor, still smoking. Emily ignored it. She slapped her palms on her knees several times and took a deep breath.
The Kirkfallen Stopwatch Page 4