Spear sighed and fell back, still clutching his knees. ‘Yes, but this wasn’t quite the plan.’ He drew his thumb along his bottom lip. It didn’t seem to overly bother him that he was bleeding. He didn’t even look at the blood. He held his face against his knees.
‘You OK?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
Bottlenose finally seemed to stir, having apparently been completely undisturbed by any of this so far. Before he was fully awake or his eyes could even focus, I quickly stretched out my foot and slid the flask from his side. Mother didn’t look straight at me but I’m very familiar with her peripheral vision. It had definitely not escaped her.
Aunt Charlotte returned, damp and dejected. She looked like she’d been washing her face in the sea. She let out a long weary sigh.
‘Let’s just all sit and calm down.’ Mother motioned us towards the ground like a frustrated schoolteacher.
* * *
Eventually, when we had all settled to our various squares of grassy scrub, we made futile attempts at sleep. Spear stayed slightly separate from the group where he had been sitting and fell into another troubled nightmare.
I listened to the island. The wind was still crying like a broken spirit. Strange, distant shrieks and solemn fluting sounds seemed to ring on the air.
‘’Tis the island,’ Bottlenose muttered without opening his eyes.
Bridget sat up, disgruntled that she’d been woken again. She was holding the dog close to her. ‘Can I just ask, out of interest—’ It was never purely out of interest with Bridget, there was always an agenda — ‘where exactly are you from, with all this folklore and fable?’
‘I’m from everywhere. All sailors are.’
‘That’s not what it will say on your passport.’
‘I don’t have a passport. Never have.’
‘Which must make it challenging to be from everywhere when you can’t travel anywhere.’ Bridget gave him one of her more acidic smiles.
Bottlenose reached out and stirred the fire with a stick.
‘What kind of sailor doesn’t have a passport?’
‘I tell you something, missy, that song is the island. It sings.’
‘Poppycock!’ Bridget said, her mouth tight and reassured.
Aunt Charlotte was awake now and looking around vaguely, ‘Whose co—?’
‘’Tis the island, when the wind is high, it sings, all along the mountains and down the sands. It sings out to sailors, luring them in.’
‘Well, we’re already here, so it can shut up.’ Mother’s voice was final.
* * *
There was little sleep to be had in that unearthly night. The bitter air spread through our limbs. Strange, disjointed noises rose from the shadows and slipped across the darkness. I could hear the island’s siren voices arcing over the dunes and down towards the sea. I was hollowed-out by fear, the cold worming its way through my joints. We couldn’t see beyond our small pool of light. All we could do was imagine what might be crawling around the edges of our mean camp, waiting just outside the ring of weak light. It was a strange spirit that teased us that night and left us sick with cold terror. I lay with my eyes wide to the sky and counted the stars for a rosary. They gleamed like metal, studding the sky as if they formed barbed wire above us. It should have been gloriously beautiful to see so many stars and so much detail in the sky but somehow it made me feel irrelevant in all of this, expendable. Fear sat heavily on all of us that night.
My mind landed like a fly on those last moments in the water. It began to crawl around until it found its way to those lingering green eyes. I watched the moonlight swim over the black water and my eyes followed its path as if it was lighting the way to the green eyes, to her waiting body.
The grey-white mist crawled down the hills and spread like mould. By the first touch of daylight we were so weary, so crippled by our own imaginations, that there seemed no feasible way we could survive another night on that bleak island with all its shadows and phantoms. We didn’t know then that there were much worse nights to come.
CHAPTER 12: ABANDONED
I was awake to see the first trace of light on the hilltops. It was a solemn, grey morning but I was relieved the night was over. I stood at our morose little camp by the edge of the beach. The storm was spent. It all seemed much smaller, more ordinary in the daylight. I looked down to the liver-coloured sea, sick with churned-up sand, the water heavy and motionless, the sky leaden as if it had been exhausted by some great illness. My mouth felt dirty and sour with the dry salt, even though the rest of me was damp. I could feel the dull throb in my temple and my stomach ached with hunger. We’d need to find fresh water and food, and fast.
I heard the first stirrings of our dilapidated group as they lifted from their weak and troubled sleep. No one looked capable of walking a hundred yards let alone surviving this. Damp clothes hung from our shoulders, bowing us down, our backs curved over like hags. Mother would not thank me for that analogy but as I looked at her now, she seemed older, tired. Everything about her seemed drawn further down. We were all huddled over into ourselves, our backs permanently bent trying to preserve some core warmth.
I looked out to the distant islands. They seemed further away than before. All that remained from the fierce storm was this ash-bucket sky. Listless clouds settled like smoke above the mountains. The wind was sterile now, not peaceful, but neutered in some way. Its white rapid madness was sedated for the moment but there was no suggestion of any permanency to this calm. It was just in abeyance, waiting and gathering its fire. That same strange, dull note rang across the sands, constant and discordant.
Bottlenose stood at the corner of the small chapel, retching and choking. He made no effort to disguise his phlegm-riddled cough and spat a great line out across the grey stones. The young girl Jess hadn’t moved. She was still hunched by the wall, those rust-coloured curls draping her face. She was in that limbo moment, when part of you thinks that if you don’t move, if you don’t acknowledge the world is still turning, then perhaps it won’t be real, he won’t be dead yet. I remember very well that gaping blank space in the days. It was like falling through the cracks of the day, that moment when time is broken, everything is, so that it doesn’t seem like the machine will ever work again. There’s no way it can function anymore and the pieces won’t fit, but it doesn’t really matter because nothing matters.
I stopped looking at her. I’m not good at looking at grief. Bob the Therapist says I should just avoid it as if he’s talking about some sort of food intolerance. ‘You need to avoid wheat, gluten and death.’ I wasn’t very good at avoiding any of them.
I walked through the bleached long grass that clung to the land, down to the water, and looked across the pale sands. We seemed so fragile. Even the island hung like a limpet on the edges of the waves, desolate and abandoned. Clinging on. We were at the borders of the world, that last bit of life before it falls into endless, depthless waters. There was something mesmerizing about the vast nature of it all. It was a naked beauty, with all its scars and imperfections, those iron hills above the sea, the rippling crags falling away at its extremities. This was an ancient world that had seen a lot more than our fleeting lives. There could still be monsters here. I just didn’t know how close they were.
Mother came and stood beside me. We watched the waves slowly toy with a few remains of our boat.
‘Someone pushed a woman under,’ I said without looking at her. I stared resolutely at the barren sea and felt her almost imperceptible flinch. ‘Out there.’ I nodded towards the sea. I heard Mother draw in a long breath.
‘Morning.’ Aunt Charlotte strode towards us. ‘How are our sailors today?’
‘Shipwrecked.’ Mother didn’t look at her. My family often speak without looking at one another. It makes it easier to be insulting.
Aunt Charlotte looked old and tired in an unsettled way. She stood against that shingle-grey sky with those strange, dark vapours hanging above the hills and she
looked weak. We were so small in that vast, open wilderness and yet it still felt like we were trapped.
‘Well, I’m bloody starving,’ Aunt Charlotte said. ‘We’ll have to find food. Mouth like a rabbit hutch too.’ She ran her tongue over her lips.
‘We’re all feeling a bit shit actually, Aunt Charlotte.’ I gave her a weak smile. ‘But thanks for asking.’
‘Come on, darling. It’s not that bad. Look at the beauty around you.’ She swung around with her arms spread and the hills behind her, like Julie Andrews in tweed.
‘I’ve seen another murder,’ I said.
She paused, her arms falling. ‘Not again, darling.’
‘What do you mean “not again”? You’ve made it sound like I’ve let myself down.’
‘You know what I mean. Must you do this every time we go away, darling? It does make it very difficult to travel with you.’
‘You should try living with her,’ Mother murmured.
‘I’m not the cause of all these deaths, you know that, don’t you? Witnessing and realizing what is going on does not make me culpable or “difficult to travel with”. I would like to say, for the record, I’m very easy to travel with and eminently easier to live with than my sideshow of a family.’
‘But you do seem to be present for a lot of murders though, don’t you?’ Bridget had, as usual, materialized beside us without any warning. She was taking her dog for its morning carry, sand apparently being ‘far too difficult for his coat’.
‘Good morning, Bridget,’ Mother said as if there was absolutely nothing good about it. ‘I see you survived the night.’
Bridget frowned. ‘I wasn’t aware that was in doubt, but travelling with you people, I suppose anyone could die suddenly.’
‘Who said you were travelling with us?’ Mother turned to her.
‘It’s so funny, Pandora—’ Bridget laughed as if it genuinely was funny — ‘you’ve improbably survived so much, done all your clever little interviews and newspaper articles, even carved out a modicum of fame for yourself from all that horror. You’ve been so clever about it all, haven’t you? And yet . . .’ She paused for a moment as if she was pondering something. ‘Yet it was always your husband who had all the brains, wasn’t it? Now, isn’t that funny?’ She laughed again, as if salting the words and rubbing them in deeper. ‘Funny little world, isn’t it? Perhaps you really are more smart than anyone ever gave you credit for.’
I felt Mother move forward and, even though I know she’s not a fan of anyone touching her, I put my hand on her arm. Bridget saw it and her smile cut even deeper. She turned to leave with her dog and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Mr Bojingles, perhaps you don’t need to be smart to survive.’
‘Tell that to Mr Bojangles,’ Aunt Charlotte shot.
Bridget stiffened and began to walk prissily away.
I felt the blood surge in my temple. ‘Bridget, why don’t you—’
‘Don’t.’ Mother’s hand was covering mine now. ‘She’s looking for it.’
‘Forget her, Ursula.’ Aunt Charlotte raised her voice. ‘She’s so lonely, she’s even started calling herself the Lone Ranger.’
Mother and I turned to look at Aunt Charlotte. It was too late to explain it to her now.
I felt Mother squeeze my arm one last time and then let go, as if marking the end of her moment of compassion. Bridget was shuffling her little feet through the sand, shaking her head and laughing. She and the dog looked like two small wind-up toys heading into the distance.
Aunt Charlotte sighed heavily, clearing out the bad air. She rubbed her hands together. ‘Right, Ursula, come on then, let’s hear about this murder.’ Somehow, she’d managed to make it sound implausible all over again.
‘Look,’ I began, ‘all I’m saying is, when that ship went down, when we were in the water, I saw someone push a woman under.’
They waited for each other to speak, which is rare, so I must have made some sort of impression.
‘Oh, here we go. Sharpen your pens and prepare yourself for another briefing from President Snowflake.’ I hadn’t noticed Mirabelle slip in as close as a pickpocket to Mother. She’d nudged me out of the way before I’d even realized what she was doing.
I watched as she settled herself in, a vicious old cat possessive of its owner. She never could cope with the sight of Mother speaking to anyone else, least of all me.
‘We were all there in the Slaughter House,’ Mirabelle continued, ‘so don’t start—’
‘Yes,’ Aunt Charlotte interrupted, ‘And Pandora smashed you over the back of the head, Mirabelle, remember that?’ Aunt Charlotte let a thin smile travel across her lips. She winked at me. ‘Oh, of course you wouldn’t, Mirabelle, you were almost dead. Pandora, you’ll remember it though, won’t you? Hitting Mirabelle over the head, I mean?’
Mother and Mirabelle both tightened their mouths as if attempting to seal in what they really wanted to say.
‘That’s all history. We’ve talked. Mirabelle understands my reasoning,’ Mother used a borrowed voice, clipped and efficient to disguise any emotion.
Aunt Charlotte laughed. ‘I’m sure Mirabelle does. She’s always been very understanding round you, Pandora. The dog was still there paddling about in your blood though, wasn’t it, Mirabelle? I distinctly remember that.’
‘Well, they do say elephants never forget,’ Mother snapped.
I looked out at the vast sea and, not for the first time with my family, I thought how bizarre we might seem to a passer-by. Fortunately, passers-by were not a feature of this island. ‘Can we talk about the possibility of a real murder now?’ I spoke quietly, almost to myself.
Mother sighed. ‘We don’t know that there’s been any murder yet. Take it slowly. Just tell us exactly what you saw. Perhaps you were mistaken. That does happen to you quite a lot.’
‘Thank you, Mother.’
‘I mean, there were the hallucinations, the nightmares, the ghosts, the—’
‘Yes, all right, Mother. The murders in the Slaughter House were real enough though, weren’t they? So, you’ll forgive me if, occasionally, I do see death around me or suspect people might have murderous intentions.’
‘The Slaughter House was over a year ago,’ Mirabelle sighed. ‘George has been dead more than a decade. Get over it. We have. It was his f—’
I took a step towards her. I could easily have killed her right there. ‘You’re right, I really should forget about my father dying in my arms when I was only thirteen.’ I stepped close enough to smell her sour breath. ‘
‘I’ve always been a good friend to your mother. I’ve always been there for her. Living with your father was no joyride. She—’
‘Don’t you speak about him! Don’t you ever speak about him!’
‘Why not, Ursula? Because your campaign to have him canonized might be damaged by the truth? He was no bloody saint and I’m tired—’
Mother held up her hands. ‘Right, that’s enough.’
Mirabelle let out a long breath and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Pandora, but I just get so tired of her eulogizing him when we both know what he was like.’
I frowned at Mother. She purposefully avoided looking at me.
It was Aunt Charlotte who finally took it upon herself to break the tense silence. ‘Well, dear.’ She patted me on the arm. ‘You can trust me. I’m not your mother’s friend.’ She smiled. ‘Relative, you see. Entirely different thing.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ I blurted, ‘is anybody interested in the fact that I saw that woman die?’ I looked between them.
‘What woman?’ Spear was standing like a broken shadow by the shore. He faced us, his mouth hanging slack. I had no idea how long he’d been there. I looked at Mother and then back at Spear, who seemed utterly dumbfounded.
‘She’s talking about back at the Slaughter House,’ Mother said. ‘She gets confused. She’s still recovering and this hasn’t helped.’
Spear pulled his head back.
‘I . . . I�
��m sorry,’ I began. Mother gave me a hard look. ‘I didn’t know you were there . . .’ I stepped backwards into the water and almost fell over a body.
CHAPTER 13: THE FERRYMAN
I stumbled back towards Mother. The dark figure at our feet was in the shallow water with its face turned to the side. The rolling head was listing in the ebb and flow, the brown hair spiked like a drowned animal.
No one moved as the body gently rolled around on the edge of the waves. No one took a breath. A belt lay next to the hand, perhaps in a last-ditch attempt at some pointless survival skill. The fingers spread out towards it. I watched Aunt Charlotte tremble as she bent down and felt for a pulse in the cold wrist. The tiny alabaster hand seemed bird-like in her thick fingers. She shook her head and carefully let the arm fall to the sand.
Swathed in sodden clothes, the lifeless slim frame swayed on the slow current. I glanced towards Spear, who looked at the body open-mouthed. Was he hoping it was her? Or was he hoping it wasn’t?
I bent down and turned the face towards me. A brief moment of recognition passed over us all. The boy from the ship. He was pallid and purple veins ran through his skin. His sightless eyes were wide open to the sky. Seaweed webbed its way across his head and knitted among his hair. His clothes rippled around his slim bones.
Mother crouched beside me. I watched a line of water that could have been seawater travel along the edge of her nose and gather in the crease. I felt the long thread of a tear run across my lip and slip down over my chin. I made no effort to wipe it away. Aunt Charlotte put her arm around my shoulders.
‘I don’t remember his name.’ I stared into the young face. It would always be a young face now.
‘Nate.’ Spear’s voice cracked. He was walking towards us. We all watched him. ‘His name was Nate.’ Spear’s eyes were fixed on the cold shape of the boy.
‘That it was.’ Nobody had seen Bottlenose arrive. He stood over the boy, his head bowed like a preacher. He took a deep breath and held my brandy flask up as if toasting the lad. I frowned. I’d never even felt him take it back. ‘In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.’ He closed his eyes and supped on the liquor.
BODY ON THE ISLAND a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 2) Page 10