But when he began to speak, his voice possessed a power and fluency not quite his own. And his body dictated movement to him over which he felt he had little if any control at all. It was as though his steps and gesticulations were somehow choreographed. There was a weird absence of self-will in this performance, almost suggestive of puppetry.
He chooses not to dwell on it, but suspects he was given crucial help from somewhere or more accurately, given help from someone, obliged to wait two remorseful centuries to be given the chance to offer it.
None of the survivors would ever return. The ritual invoked seemed to have the effect that Thomas Horan’s sorcerer had said it would, on the demon he brought into being and described as spite made flesh. But nothing was done about the spectre David Shanks shot with his cine camera there in 1934.
Everyone who has seen it thinks the film is genuine. None of them doubts that the child is a ghoulish doppelganger of long-dead Rachel Ballantyne. No one can explain the spectre in any other, convincing way. The resemblance probably grows less acute as the years pass and take their physical toll on this restless apparition. But she is a baleful spirit and her antic ways would make the island an unnerving place on which to try to settle.
Wind howls through the empty New Hope settlement, even in the most innocent summer weather. The church without windows remains an unhappy construction. It was built in desperation for a bleak and bloody purpose. Around it, anguish seems to seep through the very stones of the dwellings that once housed the vanished community. It is a place as if in mourning for its own tormented passing. It seems not quite capable of peaceful repose. It is, somehow, unstill.
There is also the question of the crofter David Shanks. Or more pertinently, the vexed question of the place he built and for a short time, lived in. Passing boats have reported seeing lights on at night in the vicinity of his cottage. The island has no known inhabitants. The lights could be fishermen’s lanterns except that the surf is too high on the stretch of beach near the cottage for the casting of lines to be practical there. And what promise of a catch would tempt an angler to so remote and inhospitable a location?
Alexander McIntyre believes the island is entitled to keep its remaining mysteries unsolved. This is the view too of Paul Napier, who now heads up McIntyre’s security team. Chief Inspector Patrick Lassiter, invited by the Met to rejoin the force as part of its cold case review section, heartily agrees.
Lives were lost on the New Hope Island expedition and lives were rediscovered. For some it was a tragedy and for others a sort of rebirth. It was an experience that forged friendships and fostered romance and taught people much they did not know about themselves. But none of those who lived through it all would ever dream of going back there.
Chapter One
The police officer was young, dark, swarthy and not bad looking. He wore a suit rather than a uniform, which made him a detective. He’d travelled all the way from Scotland to interview her and spoke with a soft Highland accent. Ruthie wasn’t nervous. As far as she was aware, she’d done nothing wrong. He’d met her outside the Minghella ice-cream parlour on Ventnor’s sea-front, so she was the one on home ground.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ she asked.
‘It’s your funeral.’
‘We all die of something.’
‘I’ve never seen the point in deliberately accelerating the process though,’ he said, blinking at the bright sky. ‘This is a lovely spot.’
She lit her cigarette with a Bic lighter. She inhaled deeply, expelled smoke in twin plumes out of her nostrils and said, ‘Ask away.’
‘You booked to participate in the writer-retreat fortnight held on New Hope Island. The recent trip organised by Dennis Thorpe?’
‘Guilty as charged,’ she said, ‘I did.’
‘But you pulled out at the last moment. I’d like to know why.’
She thought about the question. She smoked and sipped coffee. She said, ‘Honest answer?’
‘You’d be wasting my time with anything else.’
‘I began to have doubts about Thorpe. Something about him didn’t seem quite right. He’d set up the New Hope thing with some Arts Council funding he had to spend within a deadline or lose access to. Or so he said. The whole thing seemed a bit rushed and half-arsed, to be honest. I didn’t think we’d be getting what was promised in the brochure.’
‘I haven’t seen the brochure.’
‘Figure of speech,’ Ruthie said. ‘Don’t mean an actual brochure.’
The Scottish police officer nodded. His name was Nick McClain and as Ruthie had correctly deduced, he was a detective sergeant.
‘Thorpe hasn’t had anything new published for about five years,’ Ruthie said. ‘I reckoned he was blocked and seeing the New Hope thing as a way to get unblocked. You go off on a writers’ retreat and you want your fellow writers calm and collected, in my view. I got the feeling though that Dennis Thorpe was pretty anxious. He didn’t seem relaxed at all.’
‘Had you any specific thoughts about any of the others?’
Ruthie shrugged. She scrabbled out her cigarette in the ashtray on their table. ‘Wannabes,’ she said, ‘all of them. I imagined that the tales swapped around the campfire at night would’ve been depressingly second-rate. It just didn’t live up to the billing, when I had a serious think about it, so I pulled out and lost my hundred quid deposit. I felt quite relieved, really, once I’d done that. It would’ve been an awfully long way to go to waste a fortnight of my life when I got there. And it would’ve been a bloody long way to come back from if I’d opted to leave early. Why is this of interest to the police?’
‘We have to follow every line of inquiry. Your cancellation seemed anomalous.’
Ruthie thought about this. ‘Anomalous how?’
McClain smiled. He said, ‘A bit like when airline passengers are no-shows for a flight where the aircraft subsequently crashes.’
‘I didn’t have a premonition of doom,’ Ruthie said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking. Should I have?’
‘They’ve disappeared,’ McClain said. ‘The entire group has vanished suddenly and without trace, something I’m going to have to insist you keep to yourself for the present.’
‘Until you find them, or find out what’s happened to them.’
‘That’s my objective.’
‘When did they disappear?’
‘Their abandoned camp was discovered three days ago.’
‘Which means you don’t know, precisely. Are you following any leads?’
‘We’ve established the usual lines of inquiry.’
‘So you haven’t a clue. Bloody hell.’
McClain smiled uncomfortably. He said, ‘Fairer to say we’ve no hard evidence, yet.’
‘It’s not the first time, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘In police-speak, New Hope’s got a bit of form when it comes to people vanishing. Didn’t a whole community of people disappear from there a hundred years ago, some kind of religious cult?’
‘Nearer to two hundred years ago,’ he said. ‘An expedition attempted to solve that particular mystery about six years back. Some of them disappeared too. Ring any bells?’
She shook her head. ‘Dennis Thorpe didn’t dwell on New Hope’s reputation. He was sold on the solitude of the island, talked all this flowery crap about the creative expanses our imaginations could explore in its isolation.’
‘Desolation, would be a better description,’ McClain said.
Ruthie smiled. She lit another cigarette. She said, ‘That word definitely didn’t figure in Thorpe’s brochure.’
‘It should have.’
‘You say that with feeling.’
He looked at her directly. He had pale blue eyes, with an attractive transparency. They were arresting eyes, she thought, thinking that only appropriate, given his job.
‘I’ve been there,’ McClain said. ‘Desolate is how it makes you feel. And I was there for only six or seven hours,
in daylight.’
‘You’ve come an awful long way, detective sergeant,’ she said, ‘to see me.’
‘It’s Nick,’ he said.
‘Then it’s Ruthie.’
‘You’re the nearest thing we’ve got to a witness, Ruthie.’
‘I never got nearer to New Hope than London.’
‘Where you attended both of the seminars Thorpe organised.’
She wrinkled her nose remembering, thinking that Dennis Thorpe had been full of shit. She said, ‘The first meeting was an induction, a potted history of the island, some stuff about its climate and the general grandeur and remoteness of the Outer Hebrides. There was an inventory of the equipment we were meant to take. The experience was going to be pretty basic, alpine tents for accommodation. Not the log cabins with wood-burning stoves I’d assumed we’d get for the money we were paying. It was all a bit survivalist for me.’
‘You don’t really come across as the nature-trail type.’
‘I don’t mind a picturesque walk. I don’t mind pedalling a few miles on a mountain bike. But I wouldn’t fancy running out of water and drinking my own pee.’
‘Yet you attended the second seminar?’
‘I write paranormal fiction. I write for children and dabble in young adult. I’m sure you know that, though. I want to write more grown-up stuff and thought the island might inspire me. I’d heard the story of the cine film David Shanks shot there in the 1930’s.’
McCain winced.
‘Oh, my God,’ Ruthie said. ‘You’ve seen it, haven’t you?’
‘Yesterday,’ he said.
‘Well?’
‘To me it looked genuine.’
‘Fuck! I mean, gosh!’
‘Tell me about the second seminar.’ She sensed his desire to move away from the subject of the cine film. No wonder, given the rumours she’d heard about it.
‘That was when the retreaters were meant to get to know one another. We’d been told to prepare a short description of our own personalities and literary tastes and aspirations with a summary at the end of what we hoped to get out of the New Hope experience. Thorpe arranged for us to all meet in a pub. It was the Flask in Hampstead Village. I got there early and was a bit pissed by the end of the evening.’
‘Great.’
‘I said a bit pissed by the end of it, not rolling drunk at the start. I can still tell you what you want to know.’
‘Without me telling you what that is?’
‘You want to know whether anyone there struck me as the sort of homicidal nutter who might massacre everyone else before topping themselves when they got to New Hope. That’s it, isn’t it?’
McClain laughed. ‘More or less in a nutshell,’ he said.
Ruthie smoked and thought, looking out across the road beyond the seafront and the pebbled beach, to the sea itself, green and glittery in the sunshine. She said, ‘There were six of them, seven including Thorpe. I remember thinking they’d have trouble just erecting tents, never mind living in them. They were none of them what you’d call physical people. None of the group was robust enough to carry out a mass slaughter.’
‘You’d be surprised at what people are capable of.’
‘I haven’t led what you’d call a sheltered life, Nick.’
‘I’m not accusing you of being naïve. I’m simply stating a fact.’
After a pause, Ruthie said, ‘None of them appeared to have an agenda beyond the obvious. They were after inspiration. They wanted to be energised and more focused. They wanted to be better writers. That’s why they were going and why they were all so excited about going.’
From his pocket, McClain took a piece of paper he unfolded and smoothed out on their table. It was a list of the names of the New Hope retreaters, with Thorpe’s at its head. He said, ‘I’d like you to tell me everything you remember about each of these people. I want to know about mannerisms, tics, conversational style and substance, appearance, tastes, opinions, everything.’
‘I only met them twice, for a total time of about five hours.’
‘I only sat down with you a few minutes ago. I already know you’re confident but not at all conceited. You’re honest to the point of sometimes being blunt. You don’t feel any pressure to please people for the sake of it, which is quite rare because most people like to be liked. You’re wearing Calvin Klein Eternity perfume. I’d say your main extravagance, though, is your hair, which is quite beautifully and recently cut. You don’t spend a lot on clothes.’
‘Cheers,’ Ruthie said.
‘No offence intended.’
‘You’re a trained investigator,’ she said, ‘which is just as well, because you’ve no future as a diplomat.’
He raised his eyebrows in amusement, before continuing. ‘I don’t yet know whether the ink is a lifestyle statement or a trespass warning but the lily didn’t need any gilding, I can assure you of that.’
Ruthie just shrugged.
‘The tattoos are exquisitely done by the way, if you like that sort of thing.’
‘Evidently I do.’
‘It’s true I’m trained, but you’re a fiction writer, so you’re observant and you’re curious. You’re obviously clever and the memory is fresh because you met these people less than a month ago. Talk to me, Ruthie. Tell me about them.’
She smiled. She said, ‘I’ll tell you everything I can, if you tell me about the Shanks cine film. It’s a quid-pro-quo.’
‘You won’t thank me.’
‘It’s like the title of that old song, you get what you give.’
‘The New Radicals,’ McClain said. ‘I’d have thought someone who looks like you would be more into Siouxsie and the Banshees or Bauhaus.’
She lifted her eyes to the sky in exasperation. ‘Bauhaus split up the year I was born, Nick. And don’t try to deflect me with your prowess at pop trivia.’
‘1983,’ he said
‘Quid-pro-quo,’ she said again.
‘You’re like a dog with a bone,’ he said.
‘I haven’t got the bone yet. And it’s never a good idea to compare a woman to a dog.’
It was McClain’s turn to gaze out over the sea. He didn’t say anything for a pause of several seconds and then he looked her directly in the eye and said, ‘You’ve got a deal.’
‘Good.’
‘Provided you have dinner with me tonight, assuming you’re free?’
‘Are you coming on to me, on duty, on the tax-payer’s time and money?’
‘No, I’m not. Talking now will make you remember something later on, that’s how the mind works. It might be something significant. It would be good if I was actually there when whatever it is comes back to you. I can give you my number and you could call me, but face to face is always preferable and my journey back isn’t till the morning.’
‘Are you married or single?’
‘I’m recently divorced.’
‘Hmm.’
His cheeks coloured slightly. He said, ‘I’ve already admitted to finding you attractive. But it would be totally unethical for me to attempt to engineer anything beyond professional contact.’
‘Tell me about the cine film,’ she said.
‘You’re very persistent.’
‘I don’t think that’s necessarily a vice,’ she said. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘It’s not relevant to the investigation.’
‘Then why did you source and view it?’
‘Sometimes the past informs the present. What’s your interest?’
‘Matters paranormal intrigue me. But you knew that.’
I’ll tell you about it tonight,’ McClain said. ‘We’ll discuss it when I’m permitted something stronger than coffee to drink.’
‘I’m an authority on strong drink,’ Ruthie said. She smiled dubiously and folded her arms across her chest. ‘It’s one of my areas of expertise, years of diligent research. I’ll meet you at the Spyglass Inn at seven o’clock.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now before yo
u go, tell me about Dennis Thorpe and his merry band of aspiring authors.’
‘They weren’t particularly merry,’ she said, unfolding her arms again, leaning back in her chair, frowning slightly and recalling them, ‘four woman and two men. We’ll do ladies first.’
The friendliest of the retreat women was a vicar from Sussex, the Reverend Mabel Farrow. Ruthie put her age at about 35, an unimportant detail because of course the detective sergeant knew exactly how old Mabel was. She had a passion for all things Jane Austen and aspired to write an Aga saga with a clergywoman heroine. Mabel had begun a weekly writing group which met at her own church hall. She’d written a few short stories and these had been enthused over by the group, obviously Ruthie said, because they all wanted to go to heaven. She hadn’t got beyond the ten-page outline of her book.
The least friendly of the women was mid-40s Customs Officer Jennifer Spring, who despite her own surname and Thorpe’s best efforts, Ruthie told McClain, never really thawed. Her eyes bored into yours with the cold promise of interviews conducted under caution and strip-searches done wearing snappy latex gloves.
‘Ill-tempered?’ McClain asked, ‘A woman who found it difficult to empathize, or conceal her basic hostility to other people?’
Ruthie thought about this, about Jennifer Spring. ‘I think more a case of struggling with severe shyness. And she wanted to write espionage fiction and for whatever reason it was an ambition she appeared to feel slightly embarrassed about.’
The two women retreaters occupying the nondescript centre-ground were Debbie Carter and Suzie Ford, probably both in their late 30s. They were both married with pre-teen children and were looking forward to the trip with a strange mix of excitement at the potential for personal fulfillment, and dread at how much, as mothers, they were going to miss their kids while away. Debbie aspired to write what she called Dark Romance. Ruthie assumed this meant Mills and Boon with a bit of light bondage. Suzie wanted to write crime novels.
‘Christ,’ Ruthie said, remembering the zeal brightening their faces as Thorpe blathered on about New Hope Island’s stark majesty, ‘I hope they’re found okay.’
The Colony Trilogy Page 29