I'll Keep You Safe

by Peter May

  Ruairidh had been opposed to the very idea of termination. Not for any religious or philosophical reasons, but because he wanted a child. And when his mother got wind of Niamh’s thinking she had accused her of trying to murder her grandchild.

  It had been a fraught time, filled with argument and aggravation. Ironically it was Seonag who had finally settled Niamh’s mind on the matter. A throwaway conversation, even before she knew that Niamh was pregnant. Already with two children of her own, Seonag had said simply that they were the greatest gift that God had given her. It had crossed her mind, she said, when first pregnant, that she was too young for children and that abortion would have allowed for future planning. Niamh remembered how her childhood friend had gazed off into the middle distance, and with a slight shake of her head said, “I’m so glad I didn’t do that. Knowing what I know now, I don’t think I could ever have forgiven myself.”

  Niamh knew she could never have lived with that kind of regret, and so she took the bold decision to let her pregnancy run its course, determined that their baby would have to fit in with their lives, rather than the other way around.

  She had relaxed into her decision, then, and begun to relish the prospect of becoming a mother. A scan had revealed that their child was a girl, and she and Ruairidh had chosen the Irish Gaelic name of Róisín for their daughter.

  But then two months before the baby was due, Niamh had begun to bleed. Unaccountably. She’d been rushed to hospital in Stornoway, then airlifted to Inverness, where the baby was stillborn. As if it had not been devastating enough to lose their child, the doctors told Niamh that due to internal damage she was unlikely to have more children.

  Ruairidh had been stoic and supportive, despite his disappointment. But his mother, though never saying it in so many words, had implied that somehow it was Niamh herself who had contrived the miscarriage. That dark cloud of suspicion and mistrust had cast a shadow on their relationship ever since.

  Róisín had been cremated in Inverness. A ceremony attended by just Niamh and Ruairidh. They had returned to release her ashes here on the cliffs, as if releasing her spirit to rest with her parents in this place for eternity.

  Niamh had regretted it immediately. With Róisín’s ashes dispersed instantly by the wind, it was as if she had lost her all over again. Vanished without trace. And in all the years since, she had lamented not burying her child. A grave to visit, a place for flowers. A piece of this earth forever Róisín’s.

  Niamh sat on a cluster of stones and gazed at the rock face below. A complex pattern of molten rock which had cooled in layers to form these cliffs untold millions of years before. If only she could be absorbed by them, subsumed to become a part of the whole. Instead of remaining this wretched speck in the universe, this tiny repository of grief and sorrow, so filled with regret at the loss of her man, and her child.

  Never in her life had she felt so small and alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The flight north from Glasgow was a bumpy one, in and out of cloud with only occasional glimpses of the ground below. Lochs and green valleys, and now mountain ranges that seemed unnaturally close.

  Braque had read that the ferry crossing from Ullapool to Stornoway took three hours on a good day, but the flight across the Minch took only a matter of minutes. It was difficult to tell when the plane was over water, because it was the same colour as the cloud. Dull, grey, featureless.

  Only now, as she saw fingers of white-ringed black rock reach out into pewtery water, did the island announce itself to her, appearing slowly out of the haze like some lost, mythical land.

  As the plane dipped beneath the cloud, she saw peat-scarred purple bog stretching off into a misted distance, tiny clusters of houses clinging to the very edges of the island itself. And her heart sank at the prospect of the days that lay ahead of her, alone in this strange and foreign place.

  Detective Sergeant George Gunn was waiting for her by the luggage carousel. She knew at once who he was. He looked like a policeman. Big feet in shiny black leather shoes, sharply pressed dark grey trousers, a quilted black anorak, and a face shaven to within an inch of its life. Pink and shiny and crowned by oiled black hair that divided his forehead in a widow’s peak.

  It seemed he knew her, too. Perhaps police officers everywhere recognized fellow travellers of the same species. He stepped forward to shake her hand as she put out her own, and said hesitantly, “Bonjour madame. Detective Sergeant George Gunn. Je suis enchanté. C’est quelle, votre valise?” He blushed and smiled and said, “School French.”

  Braque forced a smile in return. “Perhaps we should stick to English.”

  His smile vanished immediately. “Of course. Your French is much better than mine.”

  “I should hope so.”

  He laughed awkwardly. “Oh. Haha. Sorry, I meant . . .”

  “It’s alright,” she said, lifting a small suitcase from the conveyer belt. “And I can manage my bag myself, thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  At the car-rental desk he said, “You really didn’t need to hire a car. I could have driven you wherever you wanted to go.”

  She signed the rental and insurance documents. “I prefer to have my own wheels.”

  He nodded and watched as she presented her French driver’s licence, wondering if Britain’s exit from the European Union would make this process more complex in the future. He said, “How did you recognize me?”

  “The same way you recognized me.”

  He frowned. “They sent you my photograph?”

  She turned, surprised. “No. They sent you mine?”

  “Some kind of faxed personnel document. Not a very good likeness.” He thought about it for a moment. “So how . . . ?” But he decided to let it drop.

  The wind that battered them as they stepped outside had an icy edge to it, feeling to Braque more like winter than autumn. She decided that she was distinctly underdressed in her short denim jacket and T-shirt.

  “I’m in the black Ford,” he said. “If you want to just follow me into town . . .”

  The drive into Stornoway depressed Braque further. Featureless harled houses lining the road, long grasses bowed by a biting wind that swept across the moor. An old, yellow-painted mill looked like it might have been abandoned. A grey concrete municipal edifice just beyond the roundabout embodied the blighted architectural style of the depressed decade that was the nineteen seventies.

  At the top of the hill they turned right into a long, wide street, affluent villas set back from the road and brooding darkly behind mature trees still in autumn leaf. Then into Church Street, descending past Indian and Thai restaurants, and the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, to a white-painted police station on their right. At the foot of the hill, pleasure and fishing boats rose and fell on the leaden swell of the inner harbour, seagulls circling like shreds of white paper thrown to the winds.

  Braque followed Gunn into a tight square parking area, and then into the police station via the back door. Past the charge bar where a big red-faced uniformed sergeant nodded at them. Off to their right a row of police cells flanked a short corridor. Gunn followed her eye and laughed. “Not much use for those, except for drying out drunks on a Friday and Saturday night.”

  Upstairs he led her into his office and closed the door. From the window she could see a charity shop on the corner opposite. He waved her into a chair and slumped into his own, which he pulled out from a desk pushed against the wall. He tried a smile, perhaps hoping that it might draw something reciprocal. “Not quite Paris,” he said.

  Braque nodded. It was not quite like anything she had ever seen.

  “So . . .” He rested his palms on his thighs. “Niamh Macfarlane.”

  “Yes.”

  “I did a little checking. It seems she arrived back yesterday afternoon with what’s left of Ruairidh. They were at the undertaker’s this morning. The funeral will be on Wednesday.”

  Braque cocked an eyebrow in surprise. “
How did you find all that out so quickly?”

  He chuckled. “Ma’am, there’s not much happens here that I don’t know about within the hour. It’s both a good and a bad thing, but everyone knows everyone else’s business. And if they don’t, someone else will tell them soon enough. Hard to keep a secret on this island.”

  “So you would know if anyone here bore Ruairidh Macfarlane a grudge of some kind?”

  “Well, I don’t know the Macfarlanes personally. Just by reputation. Though I did meet him once about twenty years ago, when he caught some lad poaching on the Linshader Estate.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ruairidh was working as a ghillie at the lodge for the summer, taking guests out fishing. He and the gamekeeper broke up a gang of poachers and caught one of them. Handed him over to us. Ruairidh and the boy were neighbours, from the same village.”

  “Was he charged?”

  “Aye, and fined. Nothing more. But it was a stain on his reputation. A criminal record. And I believe he’s not done too well for himself since.” He smiled. “Though I doubt if that would have been motivation enough for blowing Ruairidh to bits in a car in Paris twenty some years later.”

  Braque said, “I’ve seen people moved to murder by less.”

  “Aye, well, Ma’am, folk here tend to work out their differences without killing one another.”

  “You have a low murder rate in the islands, then?”

  Gunn pulled in his chin and sucked air through his teeth. “Maybe about one every hundred years or so.”

  Braque looked at him with astonishment. “If you exclude terrorism, there are around seven hundred murders a year in France.”

  Gunn nodded. “Must keep you quite busy, then.”

  Braque wondered if he was joking, and decided that he was, despite his straight face. “So what else can you tell me about the Macfarlanes?”

  “Well, I can tell you that there’s no love lost between his family and hers. There was a . . .” He paused to search for the right word. “An incident. A tragedy, you might say. Must be a quarter of a century ago now. I wasn’t even on the island at the time. But I doubt if there’s a single soul in Lewis and Harris that doesn’t know the story.”

  Braque’s interest was piqued. “So tell me.”

  Gunn stood up. “Time enough for that tomorrow. I’ll take you there. It’ll make more sense to you if you can visualize where it happened.” Then he said, “But I’m at your disposal. If there’s anywhere you’d like me to take you, just ask.”

  Braque got stiffly to her feet. The trauma of leaving the girls, followed by the long journey from Paris to the Outer Hebrides, had taken its toll. “I should call on Madame Macfarlane, make it known to her that I’m here.”

  “You’re not undercover, then?” He seemed disappointed.

  “No, Detective Sergeant, I’m not.”

  “Well, you’ll not make it out there in that car you’ve hired. You’d rip the arse out of her—excuse my French. I’ll get us a four by four.” He rubbed his hands together. “Better get you to your hotel.”

  Braque followed Gunn’s black Ford through the town. Along Bayhead and past the inner harbour where trawlers sat high above the quay riding the tide. Shops and houses were painted blue, or yellow, or pink, sometimes harled, and sometimes just drab, rain-streaked stone. Two- and three-storey buildings clustered together along the spit of land that separated the inner and outer harbours, and it was opposite these that they parked, along the side of the quay.

  Gunn led her up a short slope to the door of the Crown Hotel, self-conscious about letting her carry her own bag, and she checked in at reception. Gunn said, “There’s a lounge bar on the first floor. They do good grub. And the restaurant’s got a nice view over the harbour. The pedestrian street out there runs right through the town. You can get fish and chips there. They call it the Narrows. It’s where the kids all hang out on Friday and Saturday nights. There’s not much else to do if you don’t have any money, or you’re too young for the pubs. It can be a bit noisy.” He glanced at her key. “But it’s only Monday, and I think your room looks over the harbour anyway.”

  They stood awkwardly for a moment, and she said, “Do you want to join me for a drink in the bar?” She registered his embarrassment again, and wondered if he saw her as attractive. She didn’t feel attractive. No make-up, hair drawn back severely in a ponytail. And why would she care? He was at least ten years her senior, carrying more weight than was good for him, and judging by the ring on his finger, a married man.

  He looked at his watch self-consciously. “I can’t really stay, Ma’am.”

  “It’s Sylvie.”

  He nodded and confirmed his marital status. “My wife will have my tea waiting for me.”

  She had an image of his wife at home with a cup of tea, piping hot and ready for him coming through the door.

  He must have seen her confusion. “My dinner,” he clarified. And suddenly it occurred to him to ask her if she would like to eat with them. “I’m sure whatever we’re having would stretch to three . . .”

  She smiled wearily. “Thank you, but no thank you.” She had no desire to pass an awkward evening with this prosaic island policeman and his wife. “I should probably get an early night.”

  He seemed relieved. “Righty-ho, then. I’ll drop by to pick you up in the morning. About eight?”

  She nodded. “Thank you. Bonne soirée, Detective Sergeant.”

  “You, too, Ma’am.”

  When he was gone she carried her case up to her room with leaden legs and a heavy heart. The room was clean and tidy and modern, with a view across the harbour which, on a good day, might be stunning. But now, with the wind ridging the water and rain marbling the window pane, was just depressing. On the far side of the harbour a castle of some kind stood sentinel on the hill. Grey and red sandstone with crenellated towers. It seemed oddly out of place in this weather-lashed fishing port on the very edge of Europe. And she wondered what sort of people lived here, and what kind of lives they led.

  She sat on the end of the bed feeling sorry for herself and took out her mobile phone to call Gilles and speak to the twins. But there was no reply, and she hung up feeling emptier and lonelier than she could ever have imagined.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was only as she approached the house that Niamh noticed Seonag’s red SUV parked next to the Jeep. She hadn’t seen it arrive, and her heart sank. She really had wanted this time to herself. To mourn, to grieve, to deal with her demons on her own.

  When she stepped into the house she could smell cooking. She kicked off her wellies and hung up her parka and padded through to the living room. Seonag was busy at the stove, steam rising from a large pan of boiling water filled with spaghetti. A meat sauce bubbled in another. Discarded food wrappings and the remains of ingredients lay scattered across the worktop. A bottle of Amarone stood open on the counter next to a couple of glasses, one of which contained a good two inches of ruby-red wine and displayed Seonag’s lipstick all around the rim. Seonag looked entirely at home, as if it were she who lived here and not Niamh.

  She turned, smiling, as she heard Niamh come in. “Hello a ghràidh. Hope you don’t mind pasta two days running. But bolognese is a wee bit different from lasagne. And I brought some more Italian wine to go with it.”

  Niamh supposed she meant well and forced a smile. “Great. But I’ll stick with the fizzy water, if you don’t mind.” She took a fresh bottle from the fridge and poured some into the empty glass. “I’ve got to get an email out to my list before I eat. Just to let everyone know when and where the funeral’s going to be.”

  “No problem. The pasta’s got a way to go yet. I’ll just keep the sauce warm.”

  Niamh took her glass with her through to the office and shut the door behind her. She slumped into her chair and took a sip of water, gazing out across the Minch in the dying light. She had sent an email to her list as soon as she got back from Stornoway, and was annoyed at having
to lie to steal a moment to herself in her own house.

  She let her head fall back and closed her eyes. So many things to think about, so many things to do. And she had no will to think or do any of them. She had an overwhelming urge to sleep, but knew that if she went to bed she would probably just lie awake.

  She resented Seonag’s uninvited presence, and yet there was a comfort in the sounds of domesticity coming from the kitchen. Of life in this house that had been deprived of it. How could she ever live here on her own? The only point of it had been to be with Ruairidh.

  She had finished her water before she knew it, bubbles fizzing around her lips, and realized she would have to go back through. Seonag had the table set and was transferring spaghetti with pasta tongs from the pan into deep plates. “Perfect timing,” she said. And began spooning minced beef and tomato sauce over the pasta before grating big flakes of parmesan over the top of it. She carried the plates to the table and they both sat on the round, facing the view. Just as Niamh and Ruairidh had always done. Seonag refilled her glass. “So how did you get on with the Macfarlanes?”

  Niamh flicked her a glance and was sure she already knew, but told her anyway.

  Seonag listened in grave silence then said, “I suppose it’s best that the coffin is on display at the croft rather than up here. Folk would never make it out on that road.” She canted her head in the direction of the track that snaked its way across the moor from Ness.

  Niamh nodded. “No.”

  “What were you doing up on the cliffs? I saw you in the distance when I arrived.”

  Niamh shrugged and spooned pasta into her mouth. It tasted good and she realized just how hungry she was. “Walking, thinking, remembering. It was out there above the bothy that we released Roísín’s ashes.”

  Seonag said, “I’ve never been out to the bothy. What possessed you to build it in the first place?”