Thunder Bay

by Douglas Skelton

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  ‘As if you’d interest him now,’ he said, his voice heavy with disdain. ‘The way you are.’

  I am what you made me, she thought, but tried not to react. She couldn’t react. That’s what he wanted. An excuse. Keep it normal, she told herself. She had to keep it normal. She needed to calm him down. She avoided looking him in the eye because she knew from experience that could be construed as a challenge. ‘Carl, do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ He mimicked her, his pitch higher and more nasal. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  She didn’t respond. No matter what she said it would enrage him, so she thought it prudent to remain silent. She took two mugs from a cupboard and set them beside the boiling kettle. She dropped a teabag in each, then fetched a spoon from the drawer under the sink.

  He still hadn’t moved from the doorway. He still hadn’t taken off his coat. He watched her every move with that frozen expression.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘You got nothing to say?’

  She didn’t look at him. She daren’t. ‘About what, Carl?’ A note of weariness crept into her voice; she couldn’t help it. She hoped he didn’t notice.

  ‘About what, Carl?’ Mimicking her again. ‘You know about what. Your behaviour tonight, is about what.’

  The kettle clicked off and she poured the hot water into the cups. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You hoped he’d be there. You were looking for him. Your boyfriend.’

  Deirdre knew who he was talking about. She couldn’t deny that. And she had hoped he’d be there. She couldn’t deny that either. She also couldn’t admit it. ‘Carl,’ she said, ‘please . . .’

  ‘Carl, please . . .’ He was mimicking her again, mocking her. ‘Carl, please what?’

  She turned and found he had moved right up behind her. She hadn’t heard a sound as he’d crossed the floor. His head was cocked to one side as he studied her with a little half-smile on his lips. She knew that smile. She knew what was coming. She’d seen the signs. She’d seen them so many times before. But not for years.

  ‘Please don’t do this,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t do what, Deirdre?’ His voice had changed. Before it had been accusatory, scornful; now it was conversational. ‘We’re talking, is all we’re doing. Can’t a husband talk to his wife now, is that it?’

  She had the mug of tea clenched in her hand. She could feel the heat seeping through the china. The liquid was still near boiling point. If she threw it in his face now, she could steal time to get away, before it happened. Before the anger and the bitterness that was welling up within him erupted.

  ‘Is that the way things are now?’ he said. ‘That a man can’t even discuss with his wife the way she was looking around a room full of our friends and neighbours for a glimpse of another man? A man she fucked before?’

  ‘I told you, Carl, nothing happened . . .’

  But it had. She had fucked Roddie Drummond, many times. Back when she was still something a man wanted, even though Carl Marsh was already turning her into a wraith haunting her own life. She looked down at the mug, the surface of the tea shimmering in her shaking hand. It would be so easy to do it. Just a jerk of her arm and she could dodge past him and out of the cottage, into the dark, where she could hide. Escape. She had thought of it before, many times. Getting away from him, away from this island. Find Roddie, reunite with him. She had dreamed of making a new life with him on the mainland. Away from the secrets and lies of Stoirm, away from Carl and his moods and his fists. It was a dream that gave her comfort as she lay in bed beside this man she had once loved, but whom she had grown to hate, and to whom she was now totally indifferent. Part of her thought it was a fantasy, an escape, but now Roddie was back. Now was her chance. He could make her whole again, she knew it. They were both older, certainly, but if she could get away she could cast off Carl Marsh and his name to become Deirdre Lomax once again. She had been a prize before she married. Carl had, too. But that had changed.

  She stared at the hot tea, willing herself to do it, to take a stand, to lash out.

  ‘Put the mug down, Deirdre,’ said Carl, softly, as if he had guessed what was going through her mind.

  She found she couldn’t move at all.

  ‘Deirdre, put it down,’ he said, his voice beginning to harden.

  She knew what would happen if she put it down. She could tell by the way he was balancing on the balls of his feet and the way his fist had clenched. The dead look in his eyes. She knew what he would do, unless she moved first. It would be so simple, throw it right in his face, then get out.

  So simple. So easy.

  She put the mug back down on the kitchen surface. And waited.

  16

  The hotel bar was compact, with a small L-shaped counter behind which a dark-haired woman with a Glasgow accent served up drinks and flirted in equal measure. Rebecca wondered if her looks and ability to handle the chat-up lines were why she was hired, although she did seem to be smart and knew her business. The flirtatious barmaid was cliché, but it was important that she be a competent cliché. The gantry was well-stocked, with a wide variety of whiskies. The pub was doing a brisk trade and she recognised many of the faces from the meeting.

  Photographs of Stoirm from the past hung on every wall. Black-and-white images of people long dead but immortalised in paper and chemicals. Men in caps and working clothes, pipes prevalent, stationed behind ploughs, herding sheep or working on boats, their faces strong and ruddy even in monochrome. Unsmiling, serious men who often regarded the camera with suspicion. Women, too, wearing long dresses and bundled in layers of wool against the elements, walking with children, working at looms, carrying laundry. Their faces were worn but many at least smiled. In one, a group of women were sitting at the harbour repairing fishing nets and laughing, as if one of them had cracked a joke.

  A small flat-screen TV tuned into Sky Sports sat on a shelf high up in the corner above the door. The sound was turned down because below it a thin-faced young woman with long brown hair was strumming a guitar accompanied by a much older man with a fiddle. The woman was singing as she played, something Gaelic and melancholy. The mixture of live music and the silent screen was typical of Scottish Highland and island life—the traditional co-existing alongside the modern. And often usurping it.

  The barmaid gave Rebecca a big smile as she laid a gin and tonic and a non-alcoholic beer in front of her. She asked if it could be charged to her room.

  ‘Sorry, hen,’ said the barmaid. ‘It’s the hotel bar, but it’s no’ part of the hotel. Me and my man run this separate.’

  Rebecca understood. Ash and his family were Sikhs, and although selling alcohol wasn’t exactly banned by their religion, she believed, they had obviously opted not to. She paid for the drinks with a twenty, made a mental note to find a cash machine in the morning and thrust the change into the pocket of her jacket. She carried the drinks through a small open doorway to the lounge area, where Donnie sat at a tiny round table in the corner. There was no one else in the small lounge, but Rebecca guessed that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. They could still hear the music and the voices from the bar, but at least they had some semblance of privacy for now.

  He thanked her and sipped the beer, grimacing slightly at the taste, then sat back and stared at her as she struggled out of her jacket, one hand on the table top, his other dangling from the wooden arm of the chair.

  ‘So, Miss Connolly,’ he began.

  ‘Rebecca, please.’

  He dipped his head slightly. ‘Rebecca. What can I do for you?’

  She sipped her G&T. ‘Roddie Drummond.’

  He smiled. ‘I told you, old wounds. You shouldn’t pick at them—look what happened out there.’

  ‘He’s back on the island, that’s news.’

  He took another mouthful of his drink, then carefully laid his gla
ss back on the table. ‘Some folk would say that’s the island’s business.’

  ‘People will be interested . . .’

  He laughed. ‘Ah, it’s gone from being news to people being interested. I think there’s a difference, don’t you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, maybe not. You reporters never do see the distinction. Wars, political scandals, disasters—they’re news. Roddie being back? That’s just curtain twitching for anyone on the mainland.’

  ‘So why did you agree to speak to me?’

  He paused to think about that. ‘You were at the meeting, you saw what Henry Stuart is up to. That’s not been reported, not properly anyway. I’m hoping that if I cooperate a wee bit with you, you’ll report that story too. A bit of quid pro quo.’

  ‘Agreed.’ She’d already decided she’d file a story on the plans for the estate. How she was going to explain her presence on the island was a problem to be solved later.

  ‘Also, you saw what happened out there. I think things here could easily get out of hand and maybe if they know that the outside world is looking in, everyone might calm down.’

  ‘Curtain twitching has its uses, then?’

  The corners of his mouth twitched as a smile tickled. ‘Everything has its uses, Rebecca. So what do you want to know?’

  She dug in her large bag and produced a notebook, pen and her small digital recorder, which she held up slightly before asking, ‘You okay to be recorded?’

  He waved one hand in agreement while he took another mouthful of beer, his face folding with slight displeasure again.

  ‘Can never get used to the taste of this stuff,’ he said.

  ‘So why do you drink it?’

  ‘I’m an addict,’ he said. The words were blunt, with no attempt at evasion. He had said it many times before, she felt. ‘I’m not about to replace one addiction with another. And I don’t like sugary soft drinks.’ He watched while Rebecca opened the notebook to a fresh page and scribbled his name and the date at the top. ‘You take notes as well as recording?’

  ‘The recording is so I can quote you accurately, the notes are for me to refer to as an aide memoire,’ she explained, then clicked the recorder on. ‘So, what can you tell me about Roddie Drummond?’

  Donnie thought about this for a moment. ‘What can anyone tell you about Roddie Drummond? He was born on the island, brought up on the island. His father is a decent man, he owns the Portnaseil garage. That man can fix anything that goes by land or sea, he’s a bloody genius. His mum, God rest her, was loved around here. His sister is a braw lass, too. She married an incomer; he teaches at the school. None of them deserved what happened.’

  ‘But what about Roddie himself?’

  He sighed as he considered his answer. ‘I suppose I knew him better than most. We grew up together, went to school together, got drunk together. But even then, I never really knew him. Roddie was . . .’ He struggled for the correct description. ‘I don’t know how to say it. I want to say aloof but that’s not right. He wasn’t a loner, he wasn’t strange in any way, but he was kind of insular, you know? No, he was like a peninsula—he was connected to the rest of us, but there was a lot that was out there on his own. Part of us, but solitary.’

  Rebecca scribbled down the word ‘peninsula’. She liked that.

  ‘He was always that wee bit closer to Henry.’

  ‘What? Lord Henry Stuart?’

  ‘Aye, only he wasn’t a lord then, of course, because his old lordship was still alive and drinking. He was just Henry to us, part of our wee gang. Me, Mhairi, her brother Ray, Roddie. Well, when Henry was on the island. He was sent away to private school on the mainland. He was too good for our wee school, but come holidays—summer, Christmas—he was back, and the five of us were inseparable, I suppose you’d say.’ That smile twitched again. ‘The Famous Five, only we weren’t quite so wholesome, unless there was a book called Five Go Bevvying.’

  ‘And Roddie and Henry were close?’

  Donnie considered this. ‘I don’t know how to put it. Roddie was always . . . in his thrall. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but do you know what I mean? Roddie followed him about when he was here, like a wee dog. We used to slag him off about it, saying he was in love with Henry, but there wasn’t anything like that . . . well, maybe not consciously. Roddie was impressed by money, and Henry’s family had most of it on the island, although at that time they were pretty much on their uppers, relatively speaking. The aristocracy having cash flow problems can often be completely different from you and me being short of the readies.’

  She nodded. ‘And what about Mhairi?’

  His eyes softened. ‘She was the best of us, frankly. She was the one who kept us right.’

  ‘You and Mhairi became more than friends.’

  ‘Aye. I know Roddie was head over heels about her. I saw Henry looking at her too, once we were old enough to realise she was more than just one of the lads. But back then it was always her and me.’ He stopped, eyes drifting slightly as he almost lost himself in the memory.

  Rebecca brought him back, feeling a twinge as she said, ‘She had your baby.’

  ‘Aye. Well. I buggered that up. I became a different person and ended up being wasted a lot of the time.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Anything I could smoke or inject. I was a wreck.’

  ‘What about Mhairi? Did she take drugs?’

  He shook his head. ‘No way. Her brother Raymond died of an overdose in Glasgow. She hated drugs. Now, drink, that was something else again. Mhairi could drink the lot of us under the table.’ He sipped his lager again. ‘Not while she was pregnant, though. She was a great mum. Loved that wee one.’

  Rebecca scribbled down the words ‘great mum’, fighting her own feelings of remorse. She decided to move him away from talk of family and babies and motherhood. ‘What about the night she died?’

  Donnie pushed his half-empty glass around the tabletop. So far he had exuded good humour tinged with sadness, but now his face was tight with no flickering smile to ease it. He didn’t speak for a few seconds, then he gave his head a little shake. ‘This is harder than I thought,’ he said, standing up. Rebecca felt alarm hit her—was he cutting the interview short? ‘This stuff is crap, but I’ll need another if I’m going to do it. You want one?’

  She looked at her glass. She had almost drained it without realising, so she nodded, rifled in her jacket pocket and came up with a ten pound note. ‘Here, let me pay.’

  He didn’t make any pretence of protesting. He took the bank note without a word and disappeared through the narrow doorway into the bar, leaving Rebecca on her own. A sprightly melody drifted in from the musicians, a jig of sorts, some of the patrons were clapping in time. It was an example of the bipolar nature of Scottish culture—one minute morose and plaintive, the next wild and carefree. She had never been a great lover of traditional Scottish music, but she found her foot tapping with the beat. Her island blood was getting in tune, she thought. Next thing she’d hear the skirl of the pipes and she’d look for an Englishman to kill. Or at least someone from another clan.

  She was aware of someone watching her and through the doorway she saw Bill Sawyer sitting alone, a glass in his hand, which he raised in greeting. There was something about the man that unsettled her. Maybe it was the way he watched everything that went on around him, but then she tended to do that too. Maybe it was his superior attitude. She’d met a lot of police officers, through her dad and her job, and some of them believed they were above everyone else. Her dad had told her that it was usually the bad ones who were like that. She knew she would have to speak to Sawyer at some point, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Her phone rang and she felt the brightness created by the gin and the music dissipate when she saw it was Simon. She debated briefly whether to answer then decided she couldn’t be that heartless.

  ‘Hello, Simon,’ she said, knowing there was a hardness in her voice she really had not intended.
>
  ‘Are you OK?’ His voice was full of concern. She was confused at first, but then she realised he must’ve heard she’d called in sick.

  ‘I’m fine, just a touch of stomach trouble,’ she said, her stomach actually churning a little. A lie is always found out, her dad used to say, so it’s always better to tell the truth. It may be painful at first, like ripping a plaster off, but it’s always for the best. Still, she was committed now. Then she realised he might worry, given their history, so she added, ‘Something I ate, maybe.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Home. Taking it easy.’

  ‘I’ve been ringing your bell for ten minutes.’

  Shit. A lie is always found out . . .

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, her mind scrambling for an explanation. ‘I didn’t hear it.’

  ‘You didn’t hear me ringing the bell for ten minutes?’ He had adopted his courtroom voice, the one he used when about to skewer someone’s evidence. Quiet but pointed.

  ‘Simon, please, I’m really not feeling . . .’

  ‘Rebecca, where’s your car?’

  She was thrown by the question. ‘My car?’

  ‘Your car. You usually park it in the street outside your flat. It’s not there.’

  Double shit. She had left it at the ferry terminal. He had her on the back foot, so she decided to go on the offensive. ‘What is this, Simon? Am I being cross-examined?’

  ‘No, I . . .’

  ‘Because I don’t like being questioned, okay?’

  ‘Rebecca, I care about you. I’m concerned. I heard you were sick, so I thought I’d come over, make sure you’re all right. But I didn’t get a reply and now I’m standing in the street and your car’s gone. I’m worried.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m fine.’

  There was a pause and Rebecca could hear the faint sound of traffic at his end. She pictured him standing in her street, looking up at her dark windows, the phone to his ear, his hand running through his thick brown hair, something he did when he was thinking. She’d covered court cases in which he had been involved and seen him do that while considering, or pretending to consider, his next question.