Thunder Bay

by Douglas Skelton

  Donnie gave Sawyer a look. Sawyer gave him a shrug. ‘You’ve got her here now. You know what I think, but it’s up to you.’

  Donnie’s eyes swivelled back to Rebecca. ‘I didn’t tell you everything when I told you about that night. The night Mhairi died.’

  He waited for her to say something. ‘Okay,’ she said, finally.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you everything, not then. But now, with all that’s happened, it’s time to set everything straight. The truth is, I didn’t meet Mhairi on the estate. There was work going on but not on the estate, as such.’ He paused, took a breath. ‘We met at Thunder Bay.’

  41

  Donnie Kerr

  Fifteen years earlier

  I was standing alone on the beach when Mhairi arrived. I’d been sidelined, pushed away like an annoying child. I was pissed off with them because I knew it meant I wouldn’t be paid—and I really needed that money. I’d blagged a lift to Thunder Bay with them, hoping I’d be able to pitch in and get some readies so I could get to MacDonald and get myself set up. But Henry had told me to keep out of the way, that he didn’t need some useless junkie buggering things up. So I backed away from them. The lights of the Kelpie burned through the darkness, the wind hitting me off the water and plucking at my hair and my clothes. It screamed around the bay like an echo chamber. The Kelpie navigated the narrow channel towards the shore, where the RIB was waiting. The seas were high but not too bad; my dad at the helm meant the boat would ride them with ease. This was the tricky bit, the transfer, but the channel was relatively calm and even in my agitated state I knew it would go without a hitch.

  Roddie was in the RIB, along with a couple of Russians. I didn’t know how they would communicate—those guys didn’t have a word of English and Roddie sure as hell couldn’t speak Russian. But the Russkies seemed to know what they were doing, so maybe hand signals were enough. All they had to do was keep the RIB steady anyway, and help the cargo off the Kelpie. Henry Stuart was at the water’s edge with Jarji, his pal from university, and the hulking brute who followed him around. I don’t remember his name. They were all watching the water intently. None of them saw Mhairi, her torch swinging left to right as she threaded towards them down the cliffside path. I saw her, though. She shouldn’t be here, I thought, and it crossed my mind to warn them, but then, why the hell should I? They were cutting me out just because I was sick. I should’ve been on that boat—that was my job, to sneak the Kelpie out of the harbour and navigate out to sea—but when that bastard Jarji saw earlier in the day I was hurting I was out in the cold.

  That was when Henry had a conversation with my dad, Lachlan. I wasn’t present for that, but I could guess what had been said. I knew money would have been offered and refused. Threats would have been made. Sure, veiled threats, because Henry wasn’t a thug, but threats all the same. Hints. Inferences. Reminders that the men Henry was working with were not averse to meting out violence.

  Lachlan didn’t like what I had become involved with but he also knew that if he didn’t help then I would be in even further trouble, so he agreed to take the Kelpie out, meet the freighter on the open sea, pick up the cargo and bring it back via Thunder Bay. No one visited Thunder Bay at night and certainly not when the weather was closing in. There were no houses overlooking it. No one to see what was being landed. Except the sea birds, tucked up in their nests high in the cliffs. And the spirits of the dead, waiting to be taken into the west.

  If you believed that sort of thing.

  That got me thinking about the cargo. It was being taken to the West, too. But not to a better life.

  I didn’t know if Mhairi had seen me standing alone on the sand, but if she had she ignored me and headed straight to the lights at the shoreline. Her hair, caught by the wind, streamed back from her head like long, black ribbons. I remember it clearly. She strode across the beach as if the slimy seaweed and rocks weren’t there. She was always sure-footed, always pretty agile. As kids we would leap from rock to rock down near the Seven Sisters. As often as not, me and Roddie and Henry would end up sliding into the pools of salt water that nestled between them, but Mhairi always kept her feet dry. That was when I first began to fall in love with her, aged eight. I can still see her face as a child, laughing at us boys as she perched on a jagged boulder, her toes digging into fissures in the rock. A ballet dancer on points.

  Mhairi marched straight up to Henry and said something. I saw her pointing out to the Kelpie, which was alongside the RIB now and unloading the cargo. Powerful lights flashed in the hands of the men on the dinghy, illuminating the young women being helped down the ladder, their faces bleached by the beams, their eyes wide in fear. Some clutched bags, others had suitcases or backpacks. They took the hands of the men in the RIB and sat where they were told. I saw my dad helping them over the side with words of encouragement. His eyes, though, would have told a different story. I knew he would be fighting revulsion. I also knew he would never, ever speak of this night again. Not to me. Not to the police. He was doing this to protect me, his son. Family was everything on Stoirm. Part of me knew that and believed in it. The part that hadn’t been eaten away by insects.

  Mhairi whirled on Henry now and he was pulling her away from Jarji and the big Russian. She was tearing into them all—I could tell by her body language, even though the sound of her voice was faint above the wind and the waves. Her arms were waving like knives, forwards and back again, from the sea to Henry’s face. They were quick, slicing motions. Her head was so animated it was as if she was trying to head-butt him. And, knowing Mhairi, that was exactly what she wanted to do. Henry’s hands came up as he tried to defend himself, to explain, but I knew any lies he came up with would mean nothing to her. She knew him too well. She knew us all too well.

  The RIB’s outboard roared as it headed to shore, the cargo transferred, and the Kelpie was edging back to sea. My dad would sail around the north of the island and be back in Portnaseil before first light. Mhairi was still laying into Henry when she suddenly stopped and froze. I knew what she’d seen and part of me had been waiting for that moment.

  She’d picked out Roddie’s face on the RIB. Almost immediately he saw her too. He’d been too busy to pay attention to what was happening on dry land. His face glistened with shock when he spotted her.

  Seeing Roddie must have been too much for her. She turned and ran back across the beach. Jarji moved to Henry’s side and said something but Henry shook his head. I saw Jarji give his big pal a look and knew something was brewing. I took off after Mhairi at that point—but only for selfish purposes, not to protect her. The insects were scampering in my blood and I knew she was my only hope of getting something out of the night. She was moving fast, though, heading up that trail as if it was nothing, while I puffed and scraped my way after her, sometimes almost on all fours, my hands grasping at the mud for purchase.

  I called out her name but my voice was lost in the roar of the wind. I could see her torch beam jiggling ahead and the dark shape of her body as she moved easily upwards. I called again. This time she heard me and stopped, turned.

  ‘You’re here, too?’ she shouted. Even as the wind fragmented her words I could feel the disappointment.

  ‘Mhairi . . .’

  She’d turned before I’d hardly got out her name.

  I pushed myself to catch up with her, struggling to breathe but determined not to give in. I needed to talk to her. I needed her to help me. The crawling under my skin actually helped propel me upwards because I told myself she was my only chance of making it stop. I kept going, hoping she would wait for me at the top.

  As I finally hauled myself to the head of the track I saw her standing at the edge, her torch off, staring down at the beach. I looked down with her, saw the RIB had beached and in the flashing torch beams picked Roddie out beside Henry and his friends. They were looking up at the cliff top. I knew they couldn’t see us standing up there in the darkness, but something in the way they huddled together, looking
in our direction, felt precarious, sinister. For the first time I realised we were working with dangerous people.

  I became aware of Mhairi’s soft sobs. ‘Mhairi . . .’ I tried again.

  She held up a hand to silence me. ‘Donnie, don’t . . .’

  I didn’t know what to say anyway. Standing on the cliff edge, looking down on the beach and seeing the scene through Mhairi’s eyes, as the cargo was guided out of the RIB. No, not cargo—they were women, young women, Eastern European women, believing we were helping them, believing we cared. The need for drugs still roiled in my system, but the little part of me that was still Donnie Kerr, the man who had loved Mhairi, felt ashamed for being part of this trade. I turned to where three Range Rovers were parked, awaiting to take the cargo—the women—to the empty cottage on the estate where they’d stay for a few days. Mhairi’s little car was sitting at an angle in front of them.

  ‘We’d better be moving,’ I said.

  The fire in her eyes had died and now there was only sadness and confusion. ‘Why, Donnie?’ she said. ‘Why are you all involved in this?’

  I couldn’t answer at first. I didn’t know how it had all come to this either. What was I doing there? I didn’t know really.

  I watched Roddie and the big Russian break away from the others and head across the beach. They were little more than shadows but I knew it was them.

  I looked at her—I felt hollow inside. ‘What other reason is there, Mhairi?’ I said. ‘Money.’

  She turned towards me. ‘To buy drugs?’

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to.

  ‘And Roddie?’ she asked me.

  Roddie was no different from the rest of us, I told her. She thought he was, but he wasn’t.

  The two dark figures were making their way to the path up the side of the cliff, so I said we had to go. She let me lead her to the car. She backed it up a few feet, turned and began to bounce her way back towards Portnaseil.

  I remember staring at her face in the weak glow of the dashboard. ‘How did you find us?’ I asked.

  ‘Carl Marsh.’ That made sense. Marsh wasn’t involved but there was every chance he knew something was going on and he wouldn’t miss out on the chance to hurt Roddie in any way he could. Letting his girlfriend know what Roddie was involved in was too good to miss. ‘I’d been looking for Roddie,’ she said. ‘And Henry . . .’

  ‘Why?’

  She ignored me, of course, she was so angry. ‘What the hell are you all thinking?’ she was shouting. ‘People trafficking? Bringing women here, to Stoirm . . .’

  They were going to the mainland over the next few days, but that made no difference to her.

  Her sarcasm when I tried to explain was like a blunt instrument and it beat me into silence. ‘Do you know what happens to them now?’ she ranted. ‘What those friends of yours make them do? The life they lead?’

  The truth was, I hadn’t thought about it. Roddie had come to me in Glasgow and told me that Henry had work for me at home. Something that would pay well. I’d seen Roddie a few times in the city and had even helped him with bits of work for Henry and his Russian friends. But Roddie hadn’t told them that I was using quite as heavily as I was. As soon as that bastard Jarji saw me, I was out and my dad, by default if nothing else, was in. I had known what the cargo was but I didn’t care. All I thought about was the pay day. But that had been snatched away from me.

  The little car lurched and bumped on the rutted track. I wanted to suggest she slow down but I didn’t know how that would be received. I stole another look at her face. The anger was still there, an anger I knew so well.

  It struck me that I needed to tell her what she was involved in now. It was serious. ‘You know you can’t say anything about this, don’t you?’ I ventured. ‘These blokes that Henry’s involved with, they’re not the kind of blokes you want to mess with, you know?’

  She said nothing, just kept driving in the faint light. I saw her mouth was a thin little line, her jaw clenched tight. The only thing that was loose was a single tear that broke free and trickled down her cheek.

  When I look back, I hardly know myself. I should have stayed with her. I should have kept her safe. But all I wanted was money. I asked her for some cash when we reached the Spine—it took me that long to pluck up the courage.

  I was desperate.

  But I should have been with her that night.

  42

  The present day

  Rebecca listened to Donnie. Her gut had told her this wasn’t for publication, so she hadn’t taken out her notebook or recorder. Donnie was telling her only because he felt she had to know, and probably to appease his own conscience. After all this time, how would she make any of this stand up sufficiently to go to press? She couldn’t accuse a peer of the realm of being involved with people traffickers without proof, and the word of a former addict who could be seen as having an axe to grind wouldn’t be enough. Even if he would be willing to repeat it outside this little room, which she sensed he wouldn’t.

  And as she listened she knew that the truth about Mhairi’s death and the reason her father left the island were tied in a way. It was all about protecting family. It was all about keeping secrets.

  Mhairi was looking for Henry to tell him she thought she was pregnant. Her mother told no one at the time to protect her daughter, who was already seen as . . . what was it Molly had said? A Jezebel. Carl Marsh had maliciously steered her to Thunder Bay, where she would discover that her current lover was involved in smuggling young women, no doubt destined for brothels on the mainland. Donnie Kerr was earmarked to borrow and sail the Kelpie but his drug addiction had put him out of the game, so his father was pressed into service. Lachlan had said nothing to protect his son. Donnie had never told this story before because it would blacken his father’s name.

  Family.

  Secrets.

  ‘After that, everything was just about as I said before,’ said Donnie, his voice hoarse and weak now. ‘Mhairi gave me money, dropped me off in the Square, went to fetch little Sonya from her parents’ house.’

  ‘Just about as you said before,’ Rebecca said. ‘Was there more?’

  Donnie looked at Sawyer again, who said, ‘You’ve gone this far, might as well tell the rest. If you’d told me all this back then, things might be different now.’

  ‘Aye, like you’d believe a strung-out junkie. Anyway, it didn’t fit your preferred version of events.’

  Sawyer shrugged. ‘Tell her, Donnie.’

  Donnie took another deep breath, closed his eyes as if mustering his strength. ‘I told you that I didn’t see Mhairi again after she dropped me off and that was the truth. I went into the hotel bar but MacDonald wasn’t there. I had this cash burning through me, and I knew he lived in a wee flat above the bank, so I banged on his door. There was no answer. Turned out the guy was on the mainland that night, but I didn’t know it. So there I was, money to spend but nothing to spend it on. I was feverish and jittery and all those little creatures were having a party under my skin.

  ‘But I kept thinking about Mhairi and her face when she saw Roddie on that RIB and the way she was so sad and so frightened and so angry all at the same time. And I wanted to help her, I didn’t know how, but even in the state I was in I wanted to be with her and get her through this. She’d said she was in trouble, but I didn’t know if she meant because of what she’d seen or if there was something else.’

  Rebecca briefly considered telling him about Mhairi’s pregnancy fears but decided against it.

  ‘So I decided I’d go to her cottage, make sure she was okay. Or at least I think I did.’

  ‘You think you did?’

  ‘You’ve got to understand what I was like.’ He swallowed, licked his lips, reached to the bedside cabinet for the glass of water. Rebecca moved round the bed and handed it to him. He took a long drink, thanked her, then his head sank back onto his pillows again, his eyes closed. ‘You have to understand my state of mind then. I
was out of it, I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t sometimes. I’d see things, hear things, things that weren’t there. Shadows on the moors would become creatures. The wind would become voices. The stories that we’re all told on the island would take root in my mind, become real. For a long time I wasn’t sure about this, couldn’t be sure if I was imagining everything, including going back to the cottage. For years I didn’t know if I’d just thought about going back or if I dreamed I’d gone back or if I’d actually gone there. I remembered the wind battering at me as I walked. Or did I? I seem to remember throwing up a couple of times but couldn’t tell you if that was on the road or wherever. Everything I saw, thought I saw, would come like wee lightning flashes of memory.’

  ‘So what is it you think you saw?’

  Donnie opened his eyes and his gaze was steady. ‘I didn’t get as far as the cottage,’ he said. ‘I was a wee bit away, I could see Mhairi’s car, but then I heard someone walking along the road behind me. Again, you’ve got to understand what I was like, what people thought of me. I was a junkie and I couldn’t be trusted. I was out on the Spine in the middle of the night so I must’ve been up to no good, probably going to tan somebody’s house. So I nipped off the road, hid in the hedgerow.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I couldn’t see his face. He had on a wide-brimmed hat and one of those long wax coats, you know the type with the sort of cape over the shoulders? Real outdoor gear. He was just a shadow moving in the dark sort of thing. He walked right past me, straight to the cottage. He went up to the door.’

  ‘And did he go in?’

  ‘I don’t know. I decided to head back home then. I was feeling really ill and by that time I’d decided that I was more important than anything Mhairi was going through.’

  ‘But you don’t know who it was?’

  He took a breath. ‘Not then. I think I do now. Those coats, the good ones, they’re hard-wearing. They can last years if they’re properly taken care of. The thing I remember was this splash of red on the shoulder.’