Tormentor

by William Meikle

  The statement had come at me too abruptly and I struggled to process it, covering up my confusion by sipping at my beer.

  “So, what was it? Just old age?” I asked, hoping for a mundane answer.

  Alan wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Nobody really knows why she did it—but look, she was old and losing her wits. The fire could have been an accident.”

  “She burned…and it was out in the crofter’s cottage, wasn’t it?”

  He was having trouble looking me in the eye, obviously feeling guilty.

  “I’m afraid so. I should really have told you, but…”

  “But it’s been two years since her death, no sensible local would touch the place, and you needed to make a sale…I get it.” I actually felt relief now I knew. “It’s not that big of a deal, really. Back in London I lived on top of one of the old plague pits for a while, and I grew up on a house overlooking a cemetery. If spooks were going to plague me, they’d have done it long ago. Trust me. I’m fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” I replied. I tried to feel like I meant it.

  “Really, really,” he said in a perfect impersonation of a young child, and I snorted beer down my nose trying not to laugh. That broke any tension there had been, and talk moved on to more welcome subjects.

  Alan was a natural storyteller, and kept me amused all afternoon with tales from the island—as an estate agent he got to meet a lot of people, and hear a lot of stories, most of them funny, some of them sad, and others very lewd indeed. We hardly noticed we were getting through rather a lot of beer until I went to the fridge and found it empty. As the sun set chill air blew in, driving us indoors, and ending the first part of what was turning into quite a session.

  We started on the Talisker while Alan cooked up some more fish—with mash potatoes this time—“for ballast,” he said. We ate in the dining room, and as we were going back through to the sitting area, Alan looked at Beth’s urn on the mantle.

  He turned serious again.

  “I see what you mean about the cottage not bothering you,” he said quietly. “You’ve got something even closer to home on your mind, haven’t you?”

  Back in London, nobody would ever have asked such a direct question, but up here on the island, it didn’t feel intrusive at all—just a natural extension of the other stories I’d been told that day. I said something vague about needing to have Beth close by me. Alan didn’t push it—if he had, I might have started talking and not have been able to stop. He launched into a ribald story about a local vicar, two Swedish tourists and an incident in a phone booth.

  Then we really started drinking.

  * * *

  The morning hangover was as epic as the drinking had been the night before.

  I woke to the sound of clinking glass and got out of bed to investigate. Alan was already up and about, cleaning up the wreckage we’d left for the morning—beer bottles and glasses, two empty whisky bottles, plates still containing bits of our meal, and half-finished packets of salted peanuts and cheesy snacks. And above everything else, the place smelled—of stale beer, Scotch and fish.

  I left Alan at the sink and opened the French windows to their widest extent, letting the wind off the loch blow away my cobwebs. I took one look at the crofter’s cottage, and realized I’d made a decision at some point during the night.

  “Can I have it taken down?” I said to Alan once the chores were done and we were once more out on the patio—black coffee, and plenty of it this time. I pointed at the cottage. “It’s blocking the view a bit—it needs to go.”

  “You can do anything you like with it,” he said. “It’s yours.”

  “In that case, fuck it. I want it gone—every stone. Do you know somebody who’d do the job?”

  “You should throw a party,” he replied, smiling. “Half the island would come to cheer you on. But yes, I know just the man for the job. I’ll get him to give you a ring.”

  “He’s not scared of ghosts, is he?”

  “Of course he is—he’s an islander. But money trumps fear up here, every time.”

  We sat for a while just enjoying the morning.

  “So is there anything else I should know before you go?”

  He smiled, then groaned.

  “Well, I’ve got a sore head, but then again, that makes two of us. No—the old lady was the main thing. There are other stories—of course there are with a house this old. But that’s all they are—stories. I doubt there ever was a Spaniard within several hundred miles of the place in the armada days, and as I’ve said, you can’t swing a cat up here without hitting some spook or another. As long as you don’t get the heebie-jeebies out here on your lonesome, you’ll be fine.”

  We finished off three cups of coffee each before he pronounced himself fit to drive.

  “I’ll leave the dinghy here for a bit if you’d like?” he said. “There’s a wee seal colony down the loch that’s worth a visit, and some caves farther up the coast you can get inside. If you’re looking for inspiration for a painting?”

  “As long as we keep off the Scotch next time,” I replied.

  “Och, man—where would the fun be in that?”

  He left with a promise to get a contractor to give me a quote for taking down the cottage, and I went back to bed.

  7

  The demolition of the crofter’s cottage took less than an afternoon. I accepted a phone quote from the contractor the day after Alan’s visit, and two days later the building was gone, thanks to the use of a small bulldozer and a chunky flatbed truck.

  I watched proceedings from the patio—the two workmen were both fast and skillful, and the cottage was little more than a pile of rubble before I finished my coffee. What was left of the roof was lifted onto the truck in almost a single piece. After that it was just a matter of them getting all the loose stone into the back, a job that took less than an hour. I was amused to see the stoat poke his head out to see what all the rumpus was about before fleeing for the duration.

  The older of the men accepted my offer of a beer when they were done. The younger declined and drove the truck away, heading off down the rutted track at a slow walking pace.

  “There’s a bit of a hole down there now, sir,” the man said. “Some kind of root cellar by the looks of things. I wouldn’t go wandering around along the shore in the dark—if you fell in and hurt yourself it might be while afore anybody noticed.”

  “I don’t intend to do much wandering,” I said, laughing. “The view’s just fine from here.”

  “I’ve lived in Dunvegan all my life, you know,” he said. “But this is only the second time I’ve been out here.”

  I hesitated to ask, but the cottage was gone, it was a gorgeous day, and we had beer—what harm could a simple question do?

  “When was the last time?” I asked.

  I saw a similar hesitation in the man before he answered.

  “It was the day before the old lady died,” he said. “Funnily enough, she asked me to come and give her an estimate to take away the cottage. I gave her the same figure I gave you—I was waiting for a reply when I heard she was dead.”

  A sudden breeze came of the loch, a chill reminder of how quickly the weather could change. I felt it in my spine and shivered.

  “Somebody walk over your grave?” the man asked.

  I didn’t answer, but the day no longer felt as gorgeous as before. He finished his beer and looked out over the loch.

  “Your view is improved. I knew it would be,” he said.

  He was right about that. I now had a clear outlook right across the expanse of the loch to the hills on the far side. The only thing now between the patio and the shore was the woodpile—I hadn’t had to use any of it yet, but I was looking forward to the winter when I could get a real fire going. I wasn’t sure the stoat would enjoy being disturbed too often though—he seemed to have taken up residence in and around the logs, and could be seen most mornings sunning himself bef
ore starting his day’s foraging.

  My own mood improved greatly in the weeks following the removal of the cottage. I got used to the solitude, and even started in on a new painting—a panoramic view from the patio. The dinghy still lay in the harbor below the kitchen, but I didn’t have the confidence to take it out on my own. Alan was away working on the sale of a large estate north of Inverness for several weeks, and our next fishing trip was put off until his return.

  I developed a liking for two things—mackerel pate and Talisker, sometimes both at the same time. The other item of note was that I had taken to talking to Beth as if she were in the room with me, mostly when I was working on the painting. My coffee rituals now also involved feeding not two, but six sparrows, the family having grown since my arrival. The stoat never came closer than the woodpile, but he watched me constantly, as did the seals just offshore.

  Every Friday I went down to the village to get my provisions and stock up on booze, and on Saturday nights I walked down to the Dunvegan Arms, usually leaving again when the cabaret or band started up around nine, and being home by ten.

  That was my routine through most of the summer.

  * * *

  The idyll was not to last.

  I got the next corrupted email in the middle of August. As before, only two words stood out.

  Stay down.

  I took precautions against a malware attack, cleared up the laptop registry, deleted the cache and cookies, and ran three different virus scans. I woke the next morning to find a long streak of soot on the bathroom mirror and three more garbled e-mails.

  A lesser man—or a more sane man—might have upped sticks and left at that point, but I’d grown fond of my new home, far too fond to be driven out by dirty streaks and badly spelled emails.

  My war of attrition began in earnest that same weekend.

  * * *

  It started slowly.

  Each morning I’d find a single streak of soot, somewhere in the house. Sometimes it would be partly hidden behind a curtain or almost behind the cooker, sometimes I would find it in plain sight on my laptop screen or the bathroom mirror. Each time I wiped the dirt away, muttered “fuck off” under my breath, and went about my business. I received a garbled e-mail every second day or so, and after a few weeks of this I took to deleting them without even reading them.

  I incorporated the morning check for soot and e-mail into my daily routine—after shower, before coffee. That way I got to relax out on the patio and I could still feel as if the day was only just beginning. I refused to think of the irritations as any kind of supernatural visitations, preferring to consider them just a minor quirk of the house to be endured; a mental subterfuge, I know, but one I found surprisingly easy to maintain as the weeks went on.

  I certainly fooled Alan—we had two more fishing trips with accompanying whisky-drinking sessions—and subsequent hangovers—before the end of summer, and I managed to make my morning checks both times without him spotting anything amiss.

  And so it went for a while—almost like a game of cat and mouse, although I wasn’t yet sure which I was meant to be. Summer came to an end and the autumn brought with it a changeover to biting winds and heavy rain. My morning coffee got moved indoors to the dining table where I’d mostly sit and watch the rain lash against the windows or the fog creeping up the loch. Most days the stoat peeked out of the woodpile and scurried away again, as if he too had to change his ritual with the changing season. The sparrows, only four now, seemed to admonish me, finding the ball of fat and seeds I hung up outside poor fare in comparison to the digestive biscuits I’d been feeding them in the sunshine. The loch was mostly too choppy for me to see any seals but I imagined them out on the water, watching the house, wondering where I’d gone.

  The others who would be wondering where I’d got to would be the folks at the Dunvegan Arms—September was too wet and windy for me to even consider a walk along the loch to the village bar. I could of course have phoned for a cab, but in truth I felt cozy and settled where I was. There was also a nagging feeling that if I left for too long, something else—whatever was leaving me the messages—might decide to take full residence, although that was a thought I would not fully admit to myself.

  My relative wellbeing was completely shattered on a Saturday in early October.

  * * *

  I woke, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling that had gained a six-inch streak of soot overnight, just off center about two feet from the light socket. I had to stand on the bed to reach it, and it was only when I was up close to the surface that I saw, under the old lining paper that had been painted over, the faint outline denoting there was a hatchway underneath.

  Neither Alan, nor any of the particulars I’d had for the house, had mentioned an attic, and I knew just from the dimensions and slope of the roof that any space up there was going to be small and cramped. But now I knew about it, I had to look.

  It took half an hour of cursing to tear the paper off the ceiling—and was going to take twice as long to clear up the mess I made in doing so—but finally I had the hatchway cleared. It took almost all of my strength to force it open, and when I did, I got a blast of dust in my face that almost choked me. I spluttered and spat, and reached up into the open space. I was able to pull myself up easily enough and sat on the edge of the hatch, legs dangling down into the room below. A small skylight I hadn’t even noticed from the outside let in enough light to see by.

  The space was, as I had expected, cramped—my head brushed the main beam running the length of the house, and there was hardly enough room to crawl, even if I had wanted to.

  It was also empty—or almost so. The only thing in view apart from undisturbed sawdust and motes dancing in the light from the window was a yellowed notebook. A dust-free hollow between it and the hatch made me think it had been hidden here to keep it away from prying eyes, pushed inside by someone standing on a bed below.

  I took the notebook back down with me when I went. I closed the hatch and, leaving the mess for later, showered, shaved and made some coffee. I only got round to looking at the book when I was once more sitting in the dining room. It looked to be a fine clear morning on the loch, but I was more interested in what I had found than the view.

  It was a lined workbook, the kind I remember from my own schooldays. The cover was yellowed and faded but the lion rampant on the front was still clearly visible despite a growth of slime or mold on the surface. Above the lion was written—in a heavy, childish hand and gone over two or three times for impact—Annie’s Diary, August 1955.

  When I opened it, the writing was clearly legible, and the first sentence ensured I was gripped from the start.

  * * *

  Monday 3rd—Something got into the barn and spooked the cows last night. I woke up in the dark and heard them, bellowing as if they were being slaughtered. Dad said it must have been a fox—there’s nothing else round here that would set them off like that. Whatever it was, it ruined the milk too, which was thin and gray and looked like it had soot in it. Dad was not a bit pleased—he was told when we took this place that the grass around here was perfect for milkers. We’ve hardly had a decent gallon since we got here.

  Not like back at the old farm—we had foxes there too, and squirrels and all sorts of beasties in and out of the barn day and night—but we never had any problem with the milk. I wish we were back there now.

  I miss Kinross—the school in Dunvegan is going to be nice enough, but it’s a month yet before I start, and all my friends are far away. It seems like a long time since I had anyone to talk to. Mum says I’ll get used to it, but there’s something not right here. Maybe it’s because I’m alone most of the time, but I was alone a lot back at the farm, so that’s not it. Old Mr. Thomas who has the small cottage on the shore says I’m away with the fey folk, but I’m too old now to believe that nonsense.

  Maybe keeping this diary will help me with the boredom. In any case, I’ve decided it will at least make the long
nights pass faster—at least until next year when I can get out of here to the big school in Oban. I aim to write something every day, although I can’t say as there will ever be much to write about.

  Tuesday 4th — Bored. It’s raining outside, and it’s too cold. I thought August was supposed to be summertime? Well it’s not around here. Dad’s been muttering about the milk being bad again, and Mum’s too busy cleaning the house to talk to me. Bored.

  Wednesday 5th — Got told off by Mum for trailing dirt into the house. It wasn’t me! She showed me the mark, just by the kitchen door—long, black and streaky. I told her it looked like something old man Thomas would do, for I’ve seen him drawing his matchstick men on the walls down in the crofter’s cottage, but Mum was having none of it. She told me I should be ashamed of myself for trying to blame a poor old man. I’ve been sent to bed early. It’s just not fair.

  Thursday 6th — There’s been more dirty marks in the house—lots of them. Mum’s really angry, and Dad and I don’t know what we can do. We’ve told her over and over again that it’s not us that’s doing it, but she just keeps shouting. She’s been crying too, although she got angry again when Dad mentioned it. He’s gone out to the barn for a bit to see to the cows and things are quiet—for now.

  It didn’t help that old man Thomas laughed like a madman when I told him about the soot. He says the fey folk have found their way into the house, and that’s the end of it—we’ll never be rid of them now.

  Friday 7th — Mum and Dad are having a huge argument—I can hear them through the walls. Mum got all weepy today and told Dad she wanted to go back to Kinross. Dad says that’s impossible, even if we wanted to, as there’s no money to pay for a move. Mum said she’ll take me and go and stay with Gran in Cupar, and Dad started shouting, and now they’re both at it.