The water breathed in and out around the boy, lulling his young, spent body, rocking him gently to and fro. The bleak hours of exhaustion in the water were etched deep into his skin. His face was taut and cracked from the long exposure to the salt water and cold. His body smelled briny as if his flesh had soaked the sea up, sponge-like.
‘Best be getting this one to the church too,’ Bottlenose sighed as if the boy were no more than a parcel needing delivery. ‘That’ll be more dead bodies than that chapel has seen for many a year.’ And he laughed right over that dead young face.
Dead faces should never be young. It’s unnerving — unnatural — and spreads fear. It felt too intimate somehow to be looking at his death. Almost as if we were spying on something sacred. Death is private. Precious. We didn’t know him. We didn’t know anything about him. We had no right to this moment. Yet, here we were, all staring at the most important thing that would ever happen in his young life. If there’d been the luxury of a headstone, I wouldn’t even have known the full name that should be carved there or the dates that surrounded his life. When I’d studied Dad’s gravestone, I’d always thought how strange it was that it was just a dash in between those numbers that made up the sum total of his life. The two dates had become the most important part. The dash was nothing.
There was a sense of pity but there was an overriding feeling that this was such a pathetic end. I looked away at the layers of cloud gathering above us. The sky was darkening as if the lights were being turned out on him.
We carried the boy soundlessly to the waiting chapel. They say the human soul weighs twenty-one grams, based on the usual madcap scientist’s research with methods that no longer stand up to modern-day scrutiny. A theory that’s been debunked years ago, but still the romance of it remains. Even if the science is now redundant, the beauty of such an idea survives, that our souls are real and tangible, that they carry a weight to them. We want it so much that we keep a part of it as truth.
I did. Until Dad died. But he grew heavier, not lighter in my lap, as if the burden of death was taking hold and settling in on him. It was a slow and steady growth that sank further into him and I felt every moment of it. I felt the air desperate to evacuate his dying body. I felt every particle of his breath taking flight like tiny fireflies heading up into the air, each carrying a small part of him away. One was the way he laughed, one the way he hugged me, one his smell of sour, warm tobacco, another his kind touch or shrug when I had misbehaved or lost my patience. One was for the day he took me to the fair and bought me two ice creams because I dropped the first, one for the day he comforted me when I fell off my bike, one for his beige roll-neck sweaters and his old-fashioned driving gloves, for the way he tapped his hands on the steering wheel in time to the jazz. The final one was for the lasting sense of peace and joy in a moment with him that floated away that day like the dandelion clocks he used to blow with me in our little faery glen. I never went back there after he died because it would just be a park with some trees and some covered areas to sit. There wouldn’t be any faeries there at all. Not anymore.
We carried the boy in silence and he too had the strange, exaggerated weight of the dead. To look at, he had been nothing, a wisp of a boy with little to weigh him down. Now, his empty frame was heavy and bloated with seawater. We formed a strange, disjointed procession towards that meagre grey chapel. The sea still stalked the shore behind us, morose and waiting, with no grief or apology for taking this boy’s life.
As we surfaced over the dune, I saw Jess crouched at the corner of the chapel, her eyes flitting senselessly from the door to the wasteland around. She had a new rabid, caged nature about her.
I looked at Spear holding the boy’s head and shoulders. He too had an unpredictability to him, an anxious nature, glancing around himself constantly.
As we neared the chapel, I saw Angel poking at the remains of the dwindling fire, still wearing his incongruous leather jacket and the multitude of chains and pendants. He looked over at our strange procession and frowned.
‘Who is this now?’ His nonchalance had a savage tone.
‘The boy,’ Aunt Charlotte called back. ‘The boy from the boat.’
He looked confused for a moment and shrugged. It was such a callous gesture and I suddenly felt very strongly that I disliked this man, that there was something unpleasant rooted deep inside him.
He looked directly at me as if he could see my thoughts dancing around between us and gave me a long, slow smile. I looked away.
We walked on towards the chapel. My head pounded from dehydration, my stomach griped and the exhaustion dragged its way up my legs. The thought flashed through my head that we might soon begin to fill this chapel if we didn’t act.
Inside, we laid the boy down carefully. I cannot say at rest. His tortured, young body looked anything but restful. There was an anguish still etched deep into his youthful face. It looked wrong, as if it had been transferred from a much older, world-weary man.
I looked over at the other dead man. His name still lay tangled in my thoughts. A fog had wrapped itself around my mind and basic memories and words were becoming slippery. The man’s eyes were closed, his skin already sallow and waxy. He was perfect — no missing limbs, no wounds or evidence of such a violent death. Drowning is such invisible violence. His body would have writhed, his eyes bursting wide, his lungs on fire. Every part of him would have fought in desperation and yet to look at him now, there was not one single imperfection. Just breath and heart and blood had stopped. Liquid had rushed into him, filling every pocket of air like an intricate system of caves flooding. And here he lay now, one perfect dead man, with no reason not to live except water — water all the way through him, where it washed away his life.
‘He’ll need a coin,’ Bottlenose announced. ‘Sailors need a coin.’
No one answered.
I searched in the many pockets that seem necessary for survival gear, none of which had assisted in my survival so far. Everything that had been in them had sunk to the bottom of the sea. Aunt Charlotte patted her damp tweed jacket.
‘Wait,’ Mother said, too loudly for a church with two dead men in it, ‘is no one going to ask why Birdseye here is having a collection?’
Bottlenose cleared his throat and spat in the corner of the chapel. The act was so crudely disrespectful that the sound seemed to echo round the tiny room in disapproval.
‘For the ferryman—’
‘Oh, come on,’ Mother sighed.
Bottlenose stepped so close to us that I could smell a yeasty dampness rising from him, almost like rot.
‘You still got no idea where you are, girl.’ His mouth pulled into a rancid smile. ‘This place is older than your world. This sits between your world and the next. You give the lad a coin for the ferryman. Ferryman comes in the night. That’s all.
‘When I was a wee lad, there was a man in the village, folks didn’t go near him. We all knew him, though.’ Bottlenose paused to look into our frightened eyes. ‘Sometimes he’d be awakened in the night by a voice bidding him to take his ferryboat out. And he would. He’d get up, go down to his boat and find it already low in the water, as if it had been loaded and he’d watch while it sank lower and lower. Then he’d say, “No more.” He’d sail out here to Orlon and when he arrived at the shore, the boat would go up bit by bit as his invisible passengers disembarked. Each one left a coin in the boat to pay his passage. That ferryman never saw no one but he heard ’em all right, heard their voices — those getting off and those waiting for ’em on the shore.’
We stood in the small, dank chapel. The quiet cold sank through us. The smell of the tomb-damp stone filled the air. Fear was tunnelling deeper into me now. I looked at the boy’s bone-white eyes and fumbled with the coin I’d found in the corner of my jacket pocket.
‘Take it.’ My voice gave way. I pushed the coin into the old captain’s hand and turned away.
‘Point the lad towards the water,’ Bottlenose directed. ‘He
needs to be looking out to sea.’
‘He can’t see us,’ Aunt Charlotte whispered, ‘can he?’
I looked at her bemused. ‘No, Aunt Charlotte. He’s dead.’
She nodded gravely. ‘Just checking.’
Bottlenose shifted the boy round, taking care to line him up with some invisible point. ‘All graves need to be staring out to sea. Lad deserves a decent death at least.’ His words were uncharacteristically sympathetic.
‘That’s enough now,’ Spear said, his voice sudden and sharp.
They looked at each other knowingly, waiting for the other to speak.
‘Used to bury their boots up high, we did. So they can’t come walking back out the sea.’
‘What, the dead?’ Aunt Charlotte whispered. She looked at me.
‘Waste of good boots.’ Spear was leaving. ‘Enough of this.’
CHAPTER 14: DEAD MEN DON’T NEED SHOES
‘We need to search the island,’ I said. No one spoke. ‘We need to salvage anything that’s come ashore, search all the boxes and bags. There could be food, supplies, something to keep us warm or fresh water. Things didn’t necessarily wash up here. They could be further down the beach. Then we need to form groups and map out our terrain. We need to find a source of water.’
I looked at Spear for confirmation. He seemed to have a flicker of confused understanding. I looked at each of them in turn. We were a grim group huddled round that dwindling fire. Another death had taken more than a life from us. The experience of going back inside the chapel, with the cold husk of the dead man waiting there, had shaken us all. His skin had already taken on a fragility, his head had the hulled-out nature of a wasps’ nest, so delicate that one touch would shatter the delicate shell. No one touched him. Should I even say him? There was no essence of the man that girl Jess sat outside crying for. What remained was just his effigy.
‘Come on, guys,’ I said. ‘What about you?’ I motioned to Spear. ‘No fear and all that. You must have an emergency scenario.’
He stared into the embers without looking at anyone. ‘I need to find my wife.’ His words were soft and confused.
I watched his hands shaking. It was the first time I’d noticed how low the fingernails were bitten. Painfully low, to a point that must hurt all the time. He gripped his hands together as if pleading with us. I saw the green eyes flash in front of me again. ‘Your best way to help her at the moment is to stay alive,’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘OK . . . well . . . let’s . . . let’s start search parties. We might not all have washed up on the same shore. There might be more provisions or fresh water elsewhere.’ He drew the words out as if he was pulling them from some lost place in his head. ‘Nell could be somewhere. She could be hurt.’
Mother interrupted. ‘You don’t sound particularly convincing. You—’ She nodded at Bottlenose — ‘drunk man. Which island did you say this is?’
‘There be many—’
‘No, I didn’t ask for the Old Man and the Sea act. You said a name earlier. You recognize it. Where are we? Just roughly will do.’
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Well, missy, if this be having this chapel and these here witches and spirits of the night—’
‘No horse shit. Which island?’
‘And there be those standing stones.’ He pointed to a small outcrop of standing stones that none of us had even noticed before. They’d just looked like they were boulders, but our eyes had adjusted now and formed them into a circle.
‘Left by the Druids they were. Buried men alive underneath them.’ He glanced at Jess. ‘No disrespect, lady.’
‘Enough with the Time Team shit!’ Mother snapped. ‘Just tell us where we are.’
He drew his tongue across his dry, cracked lips. ‘This be Orlon, missy.’
‘Oh, well thank goodness,’ Bridget said with faux jubilation, ‘now we can just order an Uber, can’t we, Mr Bojingles?’
Aunt Charlotte looked confused. ‘Your dog orders taxis?’
There was a pause.
Bottlenose coughed violently before he continued. ‘We is looking out to Tír na nÓg, missy.’
‘Where?’
‘Some sort of Ballykissangel nonsense,’ Mirabelle said wearily.
‘Who’s kissing Angel?’ Aunt Charlotte was struggling to keep up. We all looked at Angel, who simply grinned as though he had a salacious secret. No one asked.
‘’Tis Gaelic heaven,’ Bottlenose wheezed. ‘There ain’t nothing between us and heaven, just that rolling, angry sea waiting to take us one by one. No one lives here but the faeries and kelpies. Ain’t no people, just magic.’
‘Nonsense.’ Mother flicked her hand dismissively.
‘There weren’t no nonsense in the little box they found with a tiny skeleton of a faerie in it or the tiny hammer and scales.’
‘Enough! Look, if someone as stupid as you knows where we are, then there’ll be a boat out to find us in no time. They’ll have clocked your last mayday and then . . .’ She watched the vague look unfurl on his face. ‘You did put in a mayday?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No. No need.’ He picked something from his teeth.
‘No need? When the boat was being smashed to pieces?’
‘We was all going to die. No use riskin’ more souls.’
Bewilderment spread round us quickly.
‘You bloody fool,’ Spear held his head in his hands. ‘Now I’ve lost her.’
‘Listen, when are we gonna get this little party on the road?’ We all looked over. Angel was still sitting a little separate to the group, pulling on a pair of boots. He seemed remarkably sane now, as if his whole personality had suddenly changed.
‘What are those?’ Mirabelle nodded towards the boots.
‘I know, I know,’ he sang in a high voice, ‘dis–gus–ting. But needs must.’ He pulled on the other boot and made a gruff sound. I recognized them immediately as the custom-made boots Jess’s boyfriend had worn. She was still wearing the matching ones and was watching Angel intently.
‘Where did you get them?’ Her voice sounded so disconnected it seemed unreal.
‘In there.’ Angel rearranged his multitude of charms and pendants.
‘In where?’ She still sounded detached but her voice had taken on a new, almost threatening quality now.
‘There.’ He nodded behind him towards the chapel. ‘The chapel.’
‘Where in the chapel?’
He stood up. ‘Listen, lady, I get your grief. I am down with that.’ His East London accent was soft and he spoke so slowly that it sounded almost patronizing. ‘But, lady, I got no shoes. And dead men don’t need shoes.’
‘Take them off.’
We all looked at Angel, who sighed and continued with his smooth, placating voice. It was having exactly the opposite effect on her. ‘It’s so cold and wet here, I could die too. You would not want that, I know that, lady. You have a kind face, if a little puffy from all the crying. But—’
‘Take off my dead boyfriend’s boots.’ Her words were unnervingly calm.
‘Now, be reasonable. Come on.’
‘I’m only going to ask once more. Take off my dead boyfriend’s boots.’ Her hand drew slowly from her pocket and the light clipped the end of the knife.
‘Woah! Lady, what you pulling a blade for?’
Everyone was instantly on their feet, hands outstretched, eyes wide.
‘Listen, let’s all stay calm.’ My voice came out uneven.
‘Put the knife down.’ Spear sounded unsure as well. He took a step closer towards me.
‘This isn’t the way, dear,’ Aunt Charlotte pleaded.
Everyone started speaking at once. There was a rising sense of chaos among all the voices. This was spiralling out of control.
All eyes flicked between Jess and Angel. He was agitated and rubbing one of the pendants he wore. It glistened like quicksilver in the grim light. ‘Please, lady, I will freeze. I have no shoes.’
; ‘Take them off now or I will stab you.’ Her face was emotionless, her words flat, which seemed to make it all the more convincing that she would carry out her threat.
‘I can’t just—’
She was up and moving fast towards him.
‘OK, OK!’ He held out his hands. ‘I need to take them off first. I’m gonna sit down, OK, lady?’
She held the knife firmly, its long, serrated blade catching fragments of light, which reflected in the surface of her green eyes.
He darted quick looks at her as he untied the laces, his fingers shaking and fumbling with the knot. ‘OK. OK, no need for aggro. Peace, lady. Peace.’
No one spoke as he held out the shoes to her. She grabbed them with a fast savagery and held them to her chest with one hand, like a frightened mother. A mother who was holding a large knife in the other hand.
‘Satisfied?’ Angel asked and held out his hands to his bare feet. ‘It is Arctic here. I’ll get frostbite. I will die.’
‘He can have the lad’s boots,’ Bottlenose murmured. ‘He ain’t got no one left here to care and you can’t burden the rest us with your bad feet.’
Angel looked around the group as if looking for consent.
‘I . . .’ Spear began to speak and everyone watched. His head dropped. ‘It’s only a pair of boots, I suppose. He’d want you to get the benefit, I’m sure.’
Bottlenose laughed and it dissolved quickly into a rough cough that he spat the remains of onto the floor next to Spear.
Angel walked gingerly on his bare feet to the chapel, conscious of everyone watching.
‘Take these and put them back on my boyfriend’s feet.’ Jess held out the large boots in her hand. Angel paused and she waved the knife at him again. ‘Now!’
He walked slowly and uncomfortably over to her and snatched the boots from her.
‘Thank you,’ she said coldly.
BODY ON THE ISLAND a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 2) Page 11