The Comforts of Home

by Susan Hill

  ‘Sorry, Iain. I’ll have a pint of Cluny, and Coke for Sam and what you’re having.’

  ‘No need, thanks all the same. There’s Lorna off the phone now, away and grab it before someone else does. Here.’

  He held out half an envelope with names and numbers.

  Dr Murray. Kieron. Richard.

  He started with the pathologist and got voicemail. Left a message. Richard? He couldn’t think of a Richard. He rang Kieron.

  ‘Chief Constable’s office.’

  ‘This is Simon Serrailler. I got a message to call the Chief.’

  ‘Ah, I’m sorry, he’s out at the meeting, he has a dinner this evening, and I’ve no idea what he wanted you for, I’m afraid – he didn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Right … thanks. Will you tell him I’ll ring tomorrow? No point in him calling my mobile, the whole island’s off signal. Or he can email me. That seems to be working.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Thank you.’

  He went back to Sam, who had finished his Coke, got another, and was flipping through the Sun.

  ‘Rubbish paper,’ Simon said.

  ‘Sure is. Get everyone?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Simon,’ Iain shouted across. ‘Doc’s on the phone again.’

  ‘I take it you’re still in charge,’ the pathologist said. ‘You know about the business over on the mainland?’

  ‘I heard they can’t spare a man. Some drug-smuggling. But I’m fine to hold this end. Do you have any results for me?’

  ‘Aye and one or two surprises. Can you get over here?’

  ‘Next ferry leaves in twenty minutes, I’ll catch that. Where do I come?’

  ‘I’ll meet you.’

  Dr Murray was waiting on the jetty when the ferry docked, in the usual battered jeep relied upon by those who had to get about and no fuss, in all seasons and weathers.

  They drove about a mile and then parked in front of a Victorian building which looked like a school but was in fact the old cottage hospital. That had been transferred, along with the local primary school, to a modern building to the west of the town.

  ‘We’re the path lab, the mortuary and the records office, and behind is the procurator fiscal’s office. We’ve been pressing for more space and modern facilities for years but we’re no likely to get them. Come in.’

  They had reached the entrance via a short flight of semicircular stone steps and now walked down the inevitable cream-painted corridor, with high sash windows set along it, to a pair of doors declaring ‘No Unauthorised Entrance’.

  The usual mortuary smell. Disinfectant and chemicals of a very particular kind. Formaldehyde. And something else. The smell of death which nothing could ever stifle or disguise. And yet Serrailler knew that it was not really there. Death in here had already been sanitised, rendered neutral. Death had been wiped clean, distanced from its former self, which had been life, and plunged into the maelstrom of that huge change in its every molecule. Death was not death here. And yet it was not life either. Death was a medical matter, an anonymity, an object robbed of personality and status. Death had been taken over and dealt with.

  He had never found the pathologist’s theatre of work alarming or repellent. In some ways, he found it rather beautiful, in the way that all ritual was beautiful. There was always respect, always formality. Rules were adhered to, routine followed. There was never any place for informality, for creativity, for making it up on the spot, for diversion. A post-mortem had a pattern, and a shape. A form.

  Murray had sent the assistant out. ‘We’ve no but the one,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I had three. Small boy went under the wheels of a sheep transporter. His dad’s.’ He shook his head.

  Never let anyone say these men grow callous and cynical, that they have seen it all and can no longer feel anything, that they are medical automatons, that each dead body means as little to them as the last and the one before that.

  ‘I knew them. This is it – you live in a small community. You suffer with it.’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘You can stand over there if you prefer.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Surprising how many policemen aren’t. Right, Peter.’

  Serrailler watched as the mortuary assistant wheeled in the sheeted body. He and the doctor slid it onto the examination table and then Murray beckoned Simon closer. He first rolled the sheet down to reveal the face and neck.

  Sandy looked as they all looked. Wiped clean, as if death had taken not only the breath which was life but the person, the personality, the essence, leaving a blank, for all there was still a face with features, and those features spelled her name.

  It was Sandy. But Sandy was no longer there.

  ‘Still the same ID?’

  ‘Yup. That’s her.’

  ‘Right. Let’s turn, please.’

  They turned, so that Sandy was now lying face down. The long hair had been cut and the head shaved. But it was the neck the doctor pointed at.

  ‘See there?’

  Simon bent over, looked. Whistled softly.

  ‘Not suicide then,’ he said.

  What he saw was a wound where a bullet had entered. It was precisely placed to kill in one.

  ‘Do you have any idea of the type of gun yet?’

  ‘Not exactly, but of course it wasn’t a rifle or the head would have been blown off – and rifles are the only legitimate guns owned by the islanders. It could be a Glock but I’m not a ballistics expert. I’ve emailed pictures, I’ll get a firm ID from Glasgow, maybe tomorrow if I’m lucky. I presume that will tell you more.’

  ‘No one has hit her while meaning to take out a rabbit. This is a revolver.’

  ‘Which means the killing was deliberate.’

  ‘And probably carefully planned. I doubt if anyone on Taransay owns that sort of lethal weapon – if they do, they’ll have kept it well hidden. But why would they? Any other injuries?’

  ‘Nothing serious – some scrapes and minor cuts on the hands and head – bumped against a rock or whatever. Body was dead when it went into the sea.’

  ‘I have been on the island before now – know it quite well, so far as any incomer ever can – and I can imagine brawls – I’ve seen a few on a Saturday night. But it’s a close community …’

  ‘They all are and no worse for it.’

  ‘No. And I can’t imagine anyone who would murder Sandy. She was popular … bit of a loner but she pulled her weight, she’d become part of the island. Why would anyone kill her?’

  Murray looked at him in silence for a moment, then gestured to the assistant to help him turn the body over and take off the sheet.

  ‘This didn’t entirely surprise me, given one or two other features, but it may come as a shock to you.’

  Sandy. Still unmistakably Sandy. Dead. Lying on her back.

  His back.

  Twenty-two

  To s.serrailler@police.gov.uk

  From chief.bright@police.gov.uk

  Hope it’s good with you and at least better than here. Serial arson on the menu and counting. As you’re in the quiet, crime-free land of sea and sky, I’d be grateful if you could open this up and let me have your thoughts. The mother wants the case reinvestigated. I am attaching a Zip file of everything re Kimberley Still’s disappearance and ongoing. Also, background to Lee Russon ditto. This has had to go on the back burner as we’re short-handed and the arson plus the usual is occupying everyone. No time for cold cases but Mrs Still doesn’t know that.

  It’s pretty clear to me Russon did abduct and murder Kimberley, pretty certain we’ll never prove it. But if there’s anything in here, might just be worth our while interviewing him again. But early days. When are you back? All well here, fires aside. Cat has something new – she’ll tell you. May not work out. I’m ambivalent. Is Sam still there? No word for a few days.

  All best, K

  Twenty-three

  He had sent Sam a text saying that he was liaising with
the local police – such as there were – and discussing his own position in what was now a murder inquiry. He’d be back on the last ferry, and meanwhile, Sam should pick up something for supper from the shop – eggs and frozen chips easiest. It was hit or miss whether he’d get it with the terrible reception.

  He had not told his nephew about the further complication.

  The police were stretched thin dealing with the drug smugglers.

  ‘We’ve no bodies to spare you,’ the DI Simon met had said. ‘I’ve the official OK to leave you as SIO on this one – anything you can find out pass it over. Can you do the usual interviews – where last seen, who with, anything unusual reported and so on? We’ll have to rely on you to progress everything and we’ll send someone over as soon as we can. But I’m afraid you’re on your own for the foreseeable. OK with that?’

  Simon saw the DI glance at his arm.

  ‘Fine,’ he said.

  He would go home, shower, change, then to the pub, and ask Iain if he could set up a mini-inquiry room in the snug, which was little used except on busy Friday and Saturday nights. He could ask questions there for the next few hours, as locals came and went, try to build up a picture – though he was pretty sure it would be more of a faint sketch. Once he had talked to the landlord and whoever came in first, he knew the others would turn up in the course of the day.

  *

  Loud music came through the open window of the spare bedroom.

  ‘Drop it a bit, Sam.’

  Sam did. Just.

  ‘Thought you were out helping Douglas.’

  ‘Didn’t feel like it.’

  Simon stopped on his way to the bathroom. ‘Not the way you usually are.’

  ‘No, well. What happened anyway?’

  ‘Tell you about it when I’ve cleaned up. Have we got anything to eat?’

  ‘Eggs. Bread’s a bit elderly.’

  ‘Can you make a start?’

  Sam didn’t move.

  The water flowed cold, then boiling hot, before settling for lukewarm. It was one of the trickiest things, taking a shower. Baths were not much easier. Simon looked at the top of his left arm, from which no arm now grew. The skin and flesh had healed, but even though the prosthesis fitted well – far better than those people had had to put up with until the last few years – there was still the inevitable chafing until it all hardened and toughened. He had to clean it and rub creams into it morning and night. But the angry redness had faded. It was settling down.

  He remembered every time he looked at it how lucky he had been, how he had got away with the loss of one arm, instead of his life. He had been in pain, he had been frustrated and angry and tired of it, but he had never once asked why. ‘Why me? Why this?’

  Because there was a clear answer. It was the people struck down by random illnesses, not attacked by deranged criminals, who were haunted by that question. As a cop, even in CID, he put himself in the line of fire every working day, they all did. Given the level of danger out there it was only surprising it didn’t happen more.

  It took time to make sure his arm was thoroughly dry. If it wasn’t he was asking for trouble.

  Sam was whisking up eggs and frying tomatoes when he finally went back downstairs.

  ‘Good man.’

  ‘Sorry – no bacon or anything. I’m toasting the bread.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  Nothing else was said until they sat down, the food in front of them.

  ‘OK,’ Sam said with his mouth full. ‘So?’

  Simon told him, about the bullet hole first. The easy bit.

  ‘I knew it. I mean, I didn’t but … it was just peculiar. Didn’t you think?’

  ‘Of course I thought. I’m a policeman. I’m CID. It’s what I do all the time. With any dead body, it’s always a possibility – sometimes a very remote one, sometimes barely one at all, because all the evidence points in another direction, but it has to be in your mind. With Sandy though – it wasn’t my first or even my second possibility, I admit.’

  Sam had put down his knife and fork and was looking at him. ‘Who the fuck? WHO?’

  ‘No idea, for now. Possibly it’s a why before it’s a who.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘You’d think this was the safest place on earth, this island.’

  ‘And you’d be pretty much right, in terms of violent crime. This is way out of the norm.’

  ‘What do you know about her? Sandy? Did anyone know anything?’

  It was Simon’s turn to stop eating. He hesitated. Strictly speaking, this was unethical, but his nephew had taken to Sandy, and Simon was genuinely interested in his reaction to the news that Sandy had been a man. He had no idea what it might be. Surprise, surely, but after that … shock? Disgust?

  What he would never have expected was laughter. Sam stared across the table and for a split second there was no reaction at all, but then he let out a shout of laughter, and punched the air.

  ‘Bloody hell … good for Sandy … that’ll stir up the Wee Free. Bloody HELL! Alexander not Sandra … and thinking about it, you know … well, I barely met her – him – just on the journey here and it was focus on the weather and my state … but looking back, it figures. Yup. Never cross your mind, Si?’

  ‘No.’

  Sam was still chortling as he finished his plate of eggs and toast, but then stopped quite suddenly and went quiet. ‘Only

  … Sandy was murdered. Doesn’t really matter, does it – who or what, man or woman … someone shot him. And not by accident instead of a rabbit. I mean – sod it. No one should have their life ended that way.’

  ‘No.’

  They sat, thinking, going over it, trying to make sense of it. It was a quiet night. There was always some wind on Taransay but it was so faint now it could barely be heard down the chimney and the window catches did not rattle, the curtains hung still.

  ‘Oh, and I thought I’d be moving on from here, maybe tomorrow or the day after.’

  ‘Going home?’

  ‘No. Maybe join up with a couple of friends in London – least that’s where they were last I heard.’

  ‘London,’ Simon said. ‘What to do, Sam?’

  ‘You know … meet up.’

  ‘Just meet up?.’

  Sam looked puzzled.

  ‘And when you’ve met up? What then?’

  Silence.

  ‘Have you got enough money to get to London?’

  ‘Oh. No. I thought …’

  Simon stood up and collected the plates. ‘Well, you thought wrong, Sambo. You couldn’t even be bothered to get out there to give Douglas a hand again and he could do with it, Kirsty’s sick every day at the moment, she can’t do much to help until she’s over it. So don’t expect me to put my hand in my pocket for you to doss off to London.’

  ‘So I’ve got to stay here then?’

  ‘No. Did you get return ferry and train tickets when you came here?’

  ‘Er …’

  ‘Thought not. OK, I’ll give you money for your tickets back. And I mean, back to Lafferton. Either that or stay here and work.’

  He had never spoken to Sam like that – he had never needed to. Sam wasn’t lazy or a sponger, he had always been an eager, active, cheerful boy, but he was not a boy any longer, he was a troubled young man who was unsure where his future lay or what step he wanted to take towards it. Perhaps he should have gone easy on him, even though he was not a soft touch for money to join whoever in London.

  Iain was happy to have him set up in the snug, and there were five regulars drinking to whom he could talk first, including Douglas, but also Fergal Morne, whose farm was the nearest occupied dwelling to Sandy’s cottage. Fergal was deaf, son of a father and grandfather who had also sheep-farmed in the same place, and who also had been deaf. He was married with a daughter, whose hearing was perfect, and dreaded having another, for fear it would be a boy who might carry the gene. Fergal wore hearing aids though they still left him listening to the speech of others as
through a wall of cotton wool. But he was good at reading both lips and expressions.

  ‘It was a big shock, Sandy … big shock. Never thought she’d do that to herself, I tell you. Good woman – good neighbour, though I never went inside the house, no once. She came to us.’

  ‘Did she talk about herself, Fergal? Before she came here – you know where she lived, what she’d done, family, all of that?’

  Fergal’s face registered that he was listening, taking in what Simon said, working out the questions but slowly, carefully, and it was only when he had thought that it became animated again.

  ‘No. She said nothing, ever. Very private woman, Sandy … though I never grasped that she’d any secrets, anything bad, you understand? She went out a fair bit. She’d walked the length and breadth of Taransay many a time. Saw her down on the beaches or across the top. Aye, she was fit and active.’

  ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘Maybe four days ago. Day the last storm brewed up.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the stores, and then she was driving her jeep homewards and we passed – you have to stop for one another, you know how it is – we waved. Nothing else.’

  ‘How did she look?’

  Fergal shrugged. ‘As usual.’

  ‘Did she always go off on her own, over the island?’

  ‘All the time. I used to think she’d nine lives, she was always scrambling down the cliffs and setting up a rock fall or coming back fast to outrun the tide or something of that nature. Wild woman. Aye, Iain said she’d as many lives as a cat. Only she ran out of luck.’

  ‘Did she have any visitors?’

  ‘We didnae watch her house through the net curtains all day.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t but you must have been aware of any visitors.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t … which doesn’t mean there were none, you ken?’

  ‘Sure. Was there anything different about her last time you met? Did she seem worried about anything … a bit preoccupied maybe?’

  ‘Not that I noticed. But we didn’t stop to talk much.’

  ‘Fine. Now if there’s anything at all you can remember, however small, let me know, will you? It might be important, Fergal – people don’t always realise and they dismiss some little thing. Anything you remember that seemed … not quite as usual, not right, about Sandy, her house, her vehicle … anything. Don’t feel awkward about it, and never think you’ll be wasting my time or anyone else’s.’