At midnight.
McAlpine watched him run into the distance, into the darkness.
He came to the white cottage, Shiprids, sidestepped two planters filled with something woody and spiky that had been cut back for the winter, and walked on, passing a little red car parked covertly under the hedge. The cottage was dark and deserted, no sign of life. The little old lady protected the lane like a sentinel. But she, his angel, had pulled him from the car. She was here, he knew that now.
He walked down the lane to the sea, listening to the gentle hush and rush of water he could no longer see now the moon had passed behind a cloud. She had been here; here, then gone.
He walked along towards the castle, to the little white cottage, much further than he remembered from that night. He saw the sign with the two swans, their necks entwined, the words Keeper’s Cottage wrapped in a diamond of lighter wood. The swans were for her, de Zwaan. The swan. And a diamond. It was only yesterday that he had sat at the side of her bed and held her hand, that fragile hand, watching that little tendril of blonde hair fall over the pillow. He smiled, twisting the imperfect blue diamond in his pocket. At last he was going to give it back to her.
Sea birds squawked from their rest on the high point of the cliff, disturbed by some noise. There would be caves along here, cavern haunts of smugglers and cannibals. Things secret and things hidden. Yes, he would have kept her down here, tucked away like a treasure, away from the Christopher Robins of the world.
She was drifting and whispering through his mind, beautiful, so beautiful, with her grey eyes and lovely hair, as she lifted his head from the water and leaned forward to kiss him, reclaiming what was hers. She was telling him to come back, to come back to her, that she did not want to live only in his dreams, in his nightmares, but with him.
He turned up a makeshift path towards the little gingerbread house, towards its still flickering candle-flame. His feet stumbled clumsily over driftwood on the path as he looked for signs of life. But he could see and hear nothing apart from the constant noise of the waves and the occasional sea bird.
He pushed the door gently with one finger. The wrought-iron doorknob rattled. He turned it slowly, and the mechanism released immediately, the door swinging open, revealing the kitchen, a huge oak table in the middle.
He recognized the smell immediately. Turps and oil paint. Paintbrushes were suspended in cleaner over at the sink, hanging from a wire contraption used by professional artists.
Stained rags had been left behind the taps; two canvases, sized and primed, were drying on the wall, far enough away from the Aga so that they did not dry too quickly and warp. Watercolour paper was stretched on boards, ready to be used. It could have been Helena’s studio. There was even the same type of scalpel she used, a pile of them lying next to a cloth marked with pigment. He picked one up, waving it from side to side, as if conducting an invisible orchestra.
Two cups stood upturned on the draining board, among an incongruous mix of palettes and dippers. Underneath the smell of the paint and the smell of fuel in the Aga, he could smell dog. A square of carpet topped by a woollen rug covered in dog hair lay in front of the stove. Two bowls lay on the floor, one full of water that looked fresh, the other speckled with brown flecks. He tasted a memory of the dog in his dreams, a huge wolf-like creature with yellow eyes and wicked teeth.
He walked slowly into the hall, past the door to the half-built veranda. The hall at least had a rug covering the bare boards. The stairs, five feet wide, only two inches on each rise, were more suited to a hotel than to a cottage this size.
He paused for a minute, waiting and watching, tapping the scalpel on the wood of the banister. There was no noise, apart from the deep tock of the granddaughter clock in the corner of the room, the incessant whisper of the sea, the wind walking around in the rafters above his head. And in the noise there was stillness, as if nothing would move from here, as if time and space were standing still.
He crossed the hall into the other room. This was a room that was never lived in. It was tidy, with dusty, unread magazines stacked neatly in the corner, and paintings – good paintings – hanging on the wall. There was an open fireplace stacked with sun-bleached driftwood, but the window had never been opened to let the freshness of the sea-salt breeze inside.
In the darkness beyond the glass he saw her again, the image of her, on the bonnet of the car, that dark stormy night, the wind blowing the hood of her cloak from a face suddenly highlighted to white by the lightning, just as he opened his eyes and focused through the pain and the rain. His eyes clearing as she brought the stick down on the windscreen, again and again, closing as the glass shattered. He could feel the relief of being dragged upwards and out through the window, his feet kicking against the seat. She had lashed out at the glass with her heel, so she could pull him clear without cutting him. He could remember it now, could remember it all.
He went up the stairs, the treads creaking underfoot, measuring each tread with a tap of the scalpel on the handrail.
At the top of the stairs there was a bathroom, or at least a small room with a sink, a bath and a toilet. There were no blinds or curtains at the window, and the floorboards were bare. He could make out a white towel, a pile of clothes left on the floor in a heap, but no make-up, no trappings of femininity. Nothing.
He went up the rest of the stairs, feeling his way in the darkness, feeling that somebody was here in the house with him, breathing, keeping it alive. The old plaster walls were warm, flaking in his hand as he climbed the stairs. In the darkness, he saw a picture on the wall, a photograph, the only photograph. He was beside it, level with it, before he could make it out. He had seen it before, one fleeting glance across Graham’s desk, the day he had learned the truth about how Robbie died. The photograph was grainy – it had been blown up from a smaller picture – and the colours had faded; the blue sea had drifted off to a metallic green, and chemical deterioration over the years had edged the figures with brown.
Two men and a woman, squinting their eyes against a strong Continental sun, were hugging each other in front of a yacht moored in some Mediterranean port – Monaco? St Tropez? The land rose in chocolate-box hills, white stucco houses freckled a hill scarred by a fine line that might have been a funicular railway. A road ran off the picture to the right, a promenade of open-topped cars and beautiful women. The taller man, the one who looked like Steve McQueen, had the even sun-tanned look of somebody who spends every daylight hour out of doors in a sunnier place than the west coast of Scotland. Your brother didn’t hesitate – just went straight in to get him. A dark man in a T-shirt – John? Jan? – was laughing, living for the moment. He’d been tortured before being shot. And, between them, there she was, a sunhat on the back of her head, her hand in the pocket of her denim shorts. Her brown feet bare on the wooden deck, in a balletic pose. All three were smiling, laughing, happy. A portrait of tragedy.
Warm fingers of love caressed his heart. She had been here, waiting for him, all along.
‘Hello again,’ he said, tenderly. On the glass his fingertip traced the lines of the yacht, the metal stanchions, the white rope looping from one to the other, the dark blue hull, the name of the boat hidden as she leaned like a swan twisting its neck towards its mate.
It was an insignificant noise, a slump of something soft hitting a wall, the ghostly flit of somebody moving across floorboards. McAlpine turned to the bedroom and looked in through the door. She was standing there in the mild darkness, her hands over her mouth, her back against the wall. The moonlight danced on the halo of blonde hair crowning her pale face, her eyes closed slightly, and a small sigh forced its way from her mouth as she slowly but steadily collapsed to her knees, a slow stain of red seeping through her white gown, spreading across the dusty floorboards. Her eyes flickered, closed. Then opened, trying to focus on him. Her hands grasped her dress, then as she crumpled full length on the floor, she reached out, pointing at him, her hand quivering.
Th
en she lay still, a question poised on the most perfect lips he had never kissed.
He stood motionless, watching as the persistent stain of red began to seep across the floorboards.
He tried talking to her, words of comfort, anything he could think of. ‘Come back to me, come back, come on, honey.’ He pulled off his jacket, wadded it up and pressed it to the centre of the wound. She convulsed, moaning slightly, a slow involuntary sound from deep within. All the time he talked to her, hiding his own panic and confusion. Her head tilted back slightly; a faint trickle of blood was born at the side of her mouth and began a meandering path across her cheek. Thin arms fell outstretched, like a marionette with broken strings.
‘No, no, no, not again,’ whispered McAlpine, doing the first-aid stuff, straightening her head, clearing her airway, the familiar procedure clearing his mind. He folded her arms across her wound, holding the jacket firm. ‘You hold that there now.’
He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, his other hand a comforting pressure on top of hers. ‘You hold on. Keep calm. And keep breathing.’
She moaned again.
He glanced at his mobile, knowing they were low on the beach, a huge cliff behind them. The signal would be weak. Was there a phone here? What about the figure on the beach? ‘Connect, connect,’ he said to his mobile. The display flashed at him, casting faint blue light – emergency calls only.
‘Thank God,’ he said.
‘Indeed.’ A floorboard creaked behind him. ‘I knew you would come, Alan.’
McAlpine didn’t turn round but stayed crouched, allowing the mobile to be lifted from his grasp, snapped shut and thrown across the room. He continued to press his hands to the wound, his fingers going deep into the crimson darkness of her dress. Blood was spreading out from under her as well now. Oh, God.’ He closed his eyes and prayed for her to keep breathing. ‘George?’ McAlpine’s mind was slow, emotion clouding his thoughts, but he kept his voice calm, authoritative. ‘I would like you to call an ambulance. She is badly hurt.’
‘Nemesis, Alan; that’s all it is.’
McAlpine held his hand to her forehead, smearing blood on her beautiful face. The dim light made her look as though life had passed already. Then he saw a single, weak pulse flutter under the skin of her neck. ‘You shouldn’t have done this,’ he said through a pall of sorrow. ‘This one is innocent.’
‘How can she be? How can this be innocence? Alan? Alan? Look at me. Even now, after all these years, see how you are captivated by her. Let her go, Alan; let all of it go.’ Leask’s voice was kind. He placed his hands on McAlpine’s shoulders, as if comforting him. ‘It’s her fate, as it was the fate of her mother. Look around you, look at all this. She has all this because your brother died. Your brother.’
‘No.’ McAlpine lifted his blood-soaked jacket and tried to press the edges of the wound together. Trude whimpered slightly. She was so very, very thin. “We need to get help,’ he insisted.
‘She has your brother’s blood on her hands.’ Leask was almost singing now, the island lilt seductive, as though McAlpine were his whole congregation. ‘They don’t change, do you see that, they don’t change. Her mother looked just the same, too good to speak to me, too beautiful, too important. Laughing at me just because I didn’t know about good coffee, laughing at me because I carried my Bible everywhere. Too important to give a thought to anybody else. And all those policemen going on about how beautiful she was, and what a victim she was. What victim!’ Leask scratched his eyebrow gently with his forefinger, talking all the time. ‘You see, Alan, it was all over the news that week, how a Dutch yacht was holed by a government boat and a Mr McAlpine lost his life. Well, I had a little Dutch girl upstairs. Then she was attacked and a PC McAlpine came to investigate. Then she died.’ Leask stopped scratching and shivered, as if somebody had walked over his grave. ‘And then PC McAlpine was taken off the case, because his brother was involved as well. That’s when I realized. I have a talent for being invisible, I think. People talk in front of me as if I’m not there. Also I have a talent for never forgetting a face. Well, not any more, not after this.’
McAlpine turned to look at him, remembering the ugly little transient that had passed him on the stairs, clutching his Bible for comfort. How he would have welcomed helping the police, boiling the kettle to make cups of tea for the search team, being the hub of the investigation.
‘They told me it all at the time, Alan; they told me about the boat, about your brother. Everybody talks to a minister, Alan, everybody. Your brother lost his life, so a spoiled little rich girl could continue to be just that. Look around you. Look at all this… she’s a parasite, she is living off your grief.’
McAlpine turned back to look at Trude as she moaned, the slight gurgle of breath escaping through the blood that pulsed slowly from her mouth. Her eyes flickered open, those huge grey eyes came to life, moist and so full of pain McAlpine could hardly bear to look at her. But she was the image of her mother. Every memory he had ever known, every touch, every smile, rushed over him like a kiss.
‘You’ll be fine, baby, you’ll be fine,’ he whispered. He pulled the ring from his pocket, the ring that he had kept, the ring that Helena had worn for twenty-two years. He picked up her limp hand and fitted the diamond on to a finger slippery with blood. ‘It’s yours. It’s always been yours. You should have it back,’ he said.
‘She lies like Ophelia, don’t you think? In a river of red, with her blonde halo of flowers.’
‘How did you find her? I’ve waited more than twenty years to find her.’ McAlpine pulled the hair from her face; her breathing was laboured now, quickening, then fading.
‘Women, Alan. Your little blonde detective should learn to keep her voice down in the pub.’ Leask scratched the side of his face with the broad blade of his skean dhu, leaving a smear of Trude’s blood on his cheek. He wiped it off with the cuff of his Barbour, disgusted. ‘You said she was good at her job. Well, you’d think she would be more observant… of being followed. But she’s another one who finds me invisible,’ he added chillingly. He went on, ‘I saw her in the street once. Her!’ He flicked the point of the knife at the gasping figure on the floor. ‘It couldn’t be anyone else. That same face, after more than twenty years… I’ve never forgotten.’
Trude breathed out. A slow stream of breath bubbled through the blood at her mouth and a crescent of foam curled at the corner of her mouth. It was a long time before she breathed in again.
McAlpine stood up. ‘She needs help.’
‘No,’ Leask said matter-of-factly, the madness in his voice as well as his eyes. ‘No. God will have his way.’
‘I’m not letting her die.’
‘She’s not worth it. You know that.’
McAlpine turned to look at Leask, pointing to the knife. ‘Hand it over.’
‘No.’ The minister was calmly certain. ‘Alan?’ he said gently. ‘This one is for you.’
‘For me? But I loved her.’
‘She beguiled you. Your brother died for all this. All of this. You never knew her. But I knew her. She was a bitch.’
‘She was an angel,’ McAlpine said. ‘You were wrong. But you have the chance to do the right thing now.’ He held his hand out for the knife. ‘Please, George.’
‘No. Not this knife, this knife is mine.’ Leask looked at Trude, like an artist contemplating his work, wondering whether it is finished. The minister looked pleased and turned away.
McAlpine backhanded the sweat from his upper lip, knowing he had to play for time Trude didn’t have. ‘That knife’s yours? What about the knife you used on the others?’
‘Couldn’t get near it, could I? Not with your lot all over the Phoenix, but I thought it fitting that this one should be used on her.’
McAlpine shook his head; his hand remained steady. ‘Give me the knife, George. This is not absolution, this is not justice; this is revenge; and you – of all people, George – you are above that.’
Leask did
not respond, he merely tested the point of the skean dhu against the tip of his thumb. Trude coughed slightly, and her lungs wheezed quietly. Then nothing. ‘And that’s how you see it, Alan?’
‘That’s how I see it, George. Now you are going to do the right thing. I’m going to phone for help. We are going to save her life. And then we’ll sit down and have a long chat.’
Leask nodded. ‘If that’s the way it has to be,’ he said.
And smiled slowly.
∗
Sean was running, running at night, running effortlessly, his feet hardly touching the sand, the wind in his hair, fresh sea air in his lungs. Behind him, Gelert lolloped along the waterline, his paws splashing in the shallow waves. Sean put a little speed on – the sand was harder here – his legs pumping, his arms driving, oblivious to all noise but his own breathing, regular and slow, never puffing, never panting. In. Out. In. Out. Steady.
Then he noticed the dog was no longer with him. He jogged to a halt and turned.
Gelert had stopped in his tracks and was looking back along the beach, ears pricked, a faint growl coming from the back of his throat. Sean ran back and slapped the dog on the neck.
‘Come on, come on, another three miles yet.’ But the dog trotted forward, then broke into a run and galloped back towards the cottage.
The phone went, its noise drilling through the first night’s sleep Anderson had had for ages. It was Burns down at the Phoenix. ‘Good news, sir. We’ve found a knife.’
‘Does it fit?’ Anderson asked, immediately awake.
‘In every way. It’s an old black blade, right enough, a proper working knife with a bog-oak handle and a wee bit of sawtoothing up the back of the blade. The tip’s slightly damaged. It’s got the initials ADW on it.’
‘ADW? ADW?’ He tried to pull something from the back of his sleepy head. ‘Alasdair Donald Wheeler,’ Anderson said suddenly. ‘Where did you find it?’
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