BODY ON THE ISLAND a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 2)

by VICTORIA DOWD

  ‘Wait.’ Bridget cradled her sleeping dog. ‘You do know where we are?’

  ‘Every sailor would know where he was out here.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mirabelle said with fake bemusement, ‘so you are still calling yourself a competent sailor after this fiasco, are you?’ She lifted her eyebrows in expectation. ‘Because I would have thought every sailor would have turned back when we were heading into a storm. He might even have turned up sober.’

  ‘You mock me, but I can taste that fear pouring out of you.’ He slowly licked his bottom lip.

  In the vague firelight, he seemed to take on a new malice, his eyes sharper, his features more hollowed-out. He leaned over the fumes from the fire and sniffed deeply. ‘She was a beauty this island’s witch — a demanding, angry beauty, but she was undeniable. Every night when her husband did sleep, she would give him her brew, cast her spell upon him and turn him into the most fabulous stallion.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, really, man?’ Mother’s head sank.

  ‘And she would ride him out every night far into the darkness and run with the witches across these hills. Each day, her husband would wake exhausted as if a great illness had befallen him. He could barely lift his frame to work. He could not understand what ailed him. His wife, of course, would offer no answer. And yet, when that sun sank into darkness, her wickedness did rise up and she would suffer him to be her beast again. She would not stop until he nearly did expire and was spent. And again, in that grimy light of morning she would wake him, and he would be numb with tiredness. And she would say, “Aye there my husband, you did sleep like a babe all night. You have no cause to be so tired.”

  ‘But she knew all right, and she did not stop. There was no taming that witch. But when he was near to his death, he did speak to a local doctor a boat’s ride away. That doctor was canny, but he did not say what was in his mind. Instead, he came to watch that night from afar. And he saw the wickedness that the witch-wife brought upon her own husband, how she did turn him into that horse and permit the beast not a minute’s rest. Next day, the doctor tells the man what he saw and after the husband had recovered from his shock, they did hatch a plan to exact their punishment on her.’ Bottlenose paused to swig again from my flask. I watched the liquor burn its way down across the silver edge and into his mouth. The cold damp ached in my hands, legs and chest now, and I longed for just one sip of that brandy.

  I looked up at the black, tragic sky, stippled with stars. Still the feeling that we were being observed lingered in the darkness. There was a growing sensation that we were not alone. This island somehow did not feel uninhabited. Something existed here, hidden. Perhaps it was animals, perhaps not. Perhaps it was Bottlenose’s faeries and witches.

  ‘Well, come on, man.’ Aunt Charlotte shook her head. ‘What happened to the witch and the horse-man?’

  Bottlenose gave a self-satisfied smile and nodded. ‘The next night, the man did not drink his witch-wife’s warm brew, but poured it away secretly. When she did think he was asleep and began about her vile ritual, the man and the doctor leaped upon her and grappled her to the bed.’

  ‘Oh, here we go.’ Mirabelle tutted.

  ‘They did tie her down—’

  ‘Of course they did.’

  ‘Is this some sort of filth?’ Aunt Charlotte demanded. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am not interested in pornography.’

  We all took a moment to look at Aunt Charlotte.

  ‘A thinly veiled attack on women, while still casting them as the predatory sexual animal,’ Bridget announced. ‘That’s what your witches are, isn’t it, Mr Bottlenose, wise women feared by men for their cunning and intelligence?’

  Bottlenose looked at her in confusion. ‘That witch—’ He jabbed his finger at her — ‘she had permitted him no rest and that night, for her sins, she did get shod for her crimes.’

  ‘Shod?’ Aunt Charlotte said doubtfully.

  ‘Aye, just as the horse she had made her husband be, they did make her. They brought forth the blacksmith and that night they did nail to her feet and hands horseshoes. She was shod as a horse right here on this island.’

  We looked on in horror and disbelief. Bottlenose took another long drink before leaning close into our circle. ‘They say that witch’s screams could be heard all the way on the mainland.’ He erupted into extravagant laughing that dissolved into a thick, choking cough.

  ‘So, some poor woman had nails hammered into her?’ I said. ‘Here, on this island?’

  ‘What kind of place is this?’ Mother stared at him. ‘What kind of captain are you?’

  ‘Old-school, missy.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you ever went to school.’

  His eyes sharpened. ‘But you’re still scared though aren’t you, missy?’ He smiled at her, a crude grin of enjoyment. ‘They say that witch’s ghost still stalks these hills and on the deadest of nights you can hear her hooves on the ground, feel their rhythm rise up through the soil.’

  We paused, each of us listening intently.

  ‘They, whoever they are, do seem to have an awful lot to say, don’t they?’ Bridget was stroking the sleeping dog in her lap. She seemed to be the only one of us who wasn’t afraid of Bottlenose’s campfire ghost tale.

  Quietly, I placed the flat of my hand on the cold, damp soil, feeling for some inner beat that might grow up from within the earth. Somewhere inside me, I swear I could feel that witch and see her riding towards us out of this island’s dead night.

  ‘Absolute nonsense,’ Aunt Charlotte said.

  ‘Oh, is it?’ He stared past her shoulder. ‘So, what are those eyes out there in the mist then?’

  We all spun round. Bottlenose burst into quick and sharp laughter. ‘You’re all the same, you city types. All the same.’ He fell back and took another dose of the brandy.

  But out in the distant darkness, as the clouds moved aside for some remnants of moonlight to fall through, I could see something move. Its long frame was merely an outline cut from the fields. The wraith-like figure moved in slow, staggered movements as if grappling to stand. The others had all looked away and resorted to staring into the fire, casting random insults at one another to keep warm. They hadn’t seen the strange figure forming from the mist, its ragged outline pulling closer.

  A strip of moonlight rippled out at sea and moved across the waves. As it touched the shore, it caught the figure for a moment. Two eyes, icicle-bright, in the darkness.

  I gasped and felt Mother’s sharp fingers grip my arm. The dog was awake now, crouched low and emitting a deep rumbling sound. Bridget tried to calm it with a hand, but the animal remained focused on the strange figure and continued to growl and bare its teeth.

  ‘Who’s out there?’ Mother called.

  ‘Hello? Show yourself,’ Aunt Charlotte demanded.

  In the dark silence we stood, looking out into nothing. But there was something, something that moved in strange staccato movements, stumbling through the long grass.

  Out of the ribbon of light limped a battered frame, one arm lazy at its side, the head misaligned as if in some way dislodged.

  ‘Christ,’ Mother breathed.

  ‘No, I don’t think so—’

  ‘Be quiet, Charlotte!’

  ‘Stay where you are, whatever you are,’ Aunt Charlotte commanded. She turned to Mother defiantly.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Mother frowned. ‘And what do you mean “whatever you are”? It’s clearly a man. What else could it be, you bloody fool?’ She marched towards the figure. ‘Bottlenose, you useless mess, there’s a man down. Man down.’ Suddenly, Mother was surprisingly military.

  ‘Stay where you are. We’re coming to the rescue,’ Aunt Charlotte called.

  As the figure fell to one knee, he looked towards our approaching silhouettes and collapsed. His face was caught by the moonlight. It was Spear.

  CHAPTER 11: FEAR

  There’s a point at which fear is overcome by exhaustion and we reached t
hat pretty quickly. We dragged our delirious leader, Spear, near to the fire and unceremoniously dumped him. It seemed disrespectful, perhaps even callous, but we were beyond pleasantries now.

  I bent down next to him as Mirabelle dropped his head back onto the ground. I gave her a sharp look.

  ‘He’s breathing, isn’t he?’ Mirabelle shot. ‘What more do you want? This isn’t the Ritz.’ Mirabelle had never stayed at the Ritz, but she referenced it enough to make people think that she had. Mirabelle had adopted a whole cascade of fanciful airs and graces over the years because she thought Mother would be impressed. She is. My Mother is as shallow as a kids’ paddling pool on the last day of summer. This is a rough estimation since Mother always thought paddling pools were not for PLU (People Like Us). Mother has a very different idea of ‘Us’ than the rest of the world.

  I sat down next to Spear. He was still unconscious, which became increasingly unnerving. I felt sure we weren’t supposed to just leave him like this but slapping him around the face seemed a bit extreme given what he’d just gone through. He’d been limping before he collapsed. Was he injured? We didn’t even know that much.

  The subject of what we should do with him slowly began to arise, which somehow seemed to have a slight Lord of the Flies edge to it.

  ‘He could be injured?’ I said, trying not to disturb him.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do if he is?’ Aunt Charlotte shrugged.

  ‘We should at least examine him, shouldn’t we? What if he’s losing blood?’

  Aunt Charlotte gave me her knowing look. ‘I don’t think he needs examining right now, do you, Ursula?’

  I sighed. Aunt Charlotte could make the back of a cereal packet sound salacious.

  The general consensus seemed to be that we should just leave him next to the fire and see what happened when he woke up. It was also the easiest plan of action. I’m not sure that’s the recommended medical advice in such circumstances but we convinced ourselves that this was the best tactic. Bottlenose, who looked as though he knew a lot about being unconscious, didn’t seem to disagree so we followed his lead of being absolutely no help whatsoever.

  I sat by Spear to check that he was still breathing, and Aunt Charlotte continued to cast me knowing looks and occasionally raised her eyebrows. But I was too tired to care anymore about Aunt Charlotte’s fanciful thoughts or anybody else’s, for that matter.

  I quickly fell into a difficult sleep and floated there for a while, aware of a few snippets of muted conversation going on around me and the distant voice of the sea. I could hear Spear’s troubled breathing and I drifted further away, feeling my own breath slow and mirror the voice of the tide.

  Dad’s broken breath soon surfaced from the lulling rhythm. The water was rising up and into my mouth. The cold was gnawing into my bones. My clothes momentarily ballooned with air, but the seawater slipped into that warm pocket between my skin and the material and the ice flooded in.

  ‘Where is she?’ I could hear a broken voice close to me.

  ‘Shhh. Someone will hear you,’ Mother hissed from somewhere in the background of my thoughts. Her words were cold.

  A stranger’s hand reached out across the waters. I stretched out towards it, but the hand suddenly grappled for my skull. Its fingers grabbed and began to grind down, turning my head slowly like the lid of a jar. My eyes filled with brine and as I resurfaced, the saltwater ran out of me as if I was weeping. My stomach tilted and I was almost sick with the sea burning through my nose and mouth. I went down again, and the sharp water poured in over my lips. I tried to shout but my mouth flooded with water.

  ‘Stop!’ Mother whispered. ‘Stop now, Ursula.’ Mother gripped my hand and, as my eyes opened, she was all I could see, leaning out of the night. ‘Wake up, girl. They’ll think you’re insane!’

  ‘Mother, where am I? They’re trying to drown me.’

  ‘Be quiet. Do you want them all to think you really are mad?’ Her eyes flicked to the various bodies lying around us.

  ‘As mad as a hatter, that one,’ Angel murmured with his eyes shut. ‘Mad as a hatter. That’s what they all say.’ He looked like he was still asleep.

  ‘She’s not here.’ It was a different man’s voice who spoke now in the silence. ‘Where is she?’ This voice was quick with desperation.

  Mother leaned forward and the dying fire lit her face with an unnerving steely glow. Her face was alive with anger and fear.

  ‘She’s not here.’ It was Spear. He was awake and had moved. He was standing on the edge of the group staring out into a desolate field. He turned towards us, his face disturbed. ‘Where is she? Where is my wife?’

  We sat in silence. Aunt Charlotte was awake now and bent closer. ‘This only occurs to him now?’

  I could feel my heart fluttering in my chest like a frightened bird. The image of the hands pushing my head under the wild sea was still clear in my thoughts. A bead of cold sweat lingered on my temple and prickled down my skin. I quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of my cardigan, but Mother was watching me.

  I looked over at Spear, separated out from us. ‘Where is she?’ He was so confused. Angry. There was a rawness to his voice. I watched his hands squeeze tight. Were they the hands that had pushed those green eyes into the water? Was it his wife? Surely this desperation was real. Perhaps it was more than that. Regret?

  Mother stood and brushed down her trousers in a businesslike manner. ‘Your wife has not appeared yet.’ She said it like a bank manager refusing a loan, undeniable and emotionless.

  Spear turned to look at her, his eyes wild. Then he was moving towards us. His mouth was clenched tight. I saw his hands — outstretched, strong, thick hands. The green eyes surfaced from the waves of my imagination again and looked out at me from those slippery waters. It was her, his wife — Nell — staring back at me. I was the last thing she saw before she saw nothing.

  ‘Stop! Stop right now!’ Mother commanded. ‘We don’t know where your wife is. Why would we hide that?’

  He paused and slowly fell to his knees. He didn’t look at any of us. A thin, clear trail of spit fell from his mouth to the grass. ‘She’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘Hey, man, chill. No one’s got anyone in this world,’ Angel spoke with smooth words that sounded so out of place. ‘We’re all free spirits.’

  Spear lifted his head and looked at Angel with deliberate eyes. His words were purposeful. ‘What did you say?’ His eyes remained fixed on Angel.

  Angel gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘No one’s got anyone, man. We all love freestyle, yeah?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I mean, your wife . . . Well, when we met on the Isle . . .’

  Aunt Charlotte looked up with sudden interest. ‘Ibiza? Zanzibar?’

  ‘No, the Isle of Wight.’ Angel let a crude smile slip across his face. ‘It was a festival, man. Listen . . . Let’s just say she liked my love charms.’ He held up a grubby, long phial of silver liquid on a chain around his neck. I’d seen a similar one round the neck of Spear’s wife and it looked the same as the one Angel had just given to the grieving Jess.

  Spear was on him in seconds, bundling him down onto the sand. Everyone held out their hands, but no one dared moved any closer.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘No, no . . .’

  A flurry of words littered the air. Angel and Spear were too tightly locked together to be aware of anything beyond themselves. Spear drew back his arm and hit Angel’s face with a clenched fist. It seemed to exhaust both of them. Spear lay across Angel, his fist buried into the grass below.

  Angel looked at him with piercing, crazed eyes before he burst into uncontrollable anger. He kicked out repeatedly as if Spear was a stray dog. Spear was thrown back and lay sprawled by the remains of the fire. The moonlight cast both men’s faces in a strange metallic light as if they were in some way unreal. Spear, in a pool of shadowy light, seemed like an animal, broken and spent. He was curled
around, his hands gripping his knees, in a feeble attempt to protect himself. He spat a dark mess of blood from his mouth. It trailed in a black, sticky stream to the ground. I stepped carefully towards him, my hands still out in an attempt to calm him.

  ‘You are crazy, man. Crazy!’ Angel was on his feet. He laughed and swayed as if he was suddenly drunk. His hands twitched frantically.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Mirabelle pushed Angel in the chest, and he toppled sideways to the ground as though he was now no more than a fragile shell. He lay silent on the ground.

  Aunt Charlotte turned to me. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  I shrugged and watched as Angel moved slowly and began clutching his head, howling manically.

  ‘Oh, I hardly touched you,’ Mirabelle sighed.

  ‘I can’t see!’ Angel squeezed his fingers into his temples. Every part of him was shaking now, fidgeting as if some charge was being passed through his body.

  Aunt Charlotte bent towards him. ‘His eyes are very bloodsho—’

  Angel coughed violently before spitting into her face. He fell back, his eyes turned up and he collapsed.

  Aunt Charlotte was still half-crouched, unable to move. Slowly she stood up. She didn’t look at any of us as she walked, with some attempt at dignity, towards the darkness and the rhythmic sound of the waves. ‘Why is it always me?’

  ‘What just happened there?’ Mother looked at me as if I was in some way to blame: her default position. She bent over Angel and started feeling his wrist for a pulse among all the bangles and chains. I assumed from the flippant way she dropped his arm that he must still be alive, but you never can tell with Mother.

  ‘Is he OK?’ Spear groaned. He was sitting, holding his knees tight. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  ‘He’ll live, no thanks to you.’ Mother gave him a sour look.

  ‘Hey, that little . . . incident he just had was nothing to do with me!’

  ‘Perhaps if you didn’t attack the guests,’ Bridget said, ‘we might all get along a little better and perhaps have some chance of surviving this.’ She folded her arms indignantly. ‘That is, after all, the idea isn’t it — that we survive?’