by Lin Anderson
Rhona wondered if the attack on McNab had had something to do with him sticking up for Mike in the pub. By rights it should have been her who’d taken the fallout. After all, she’d insisted on buying him a drink, even though she’d put it on McNab’s tab.
Reaching the flagstone tower, she stopped, determined now to check if anyone had trekked through the longer grass from the shore. Eventually she found a flattened track to the east of the tower which led down to the beach. Whoever had walked up from there had crossed a patch of seaweed, dried and crusted on top, but gooey and green beneath. Nearer the water were the marks of a boat’s keel in the sand.
So she had had a visitor. The question was who?
She was well aware folk called in unannounced all the time on Sanday, as they did on Skye. If the door was left unlocked, you might find your visitor inside awaiting your return.
But my door was locked, although it wouldn’t be hard to find the key.
She made up her mind to broach the subject with Derek. It was he who knew the owner of the cottage and had organized their stay there. He would probably know if she were likely to get an unannounced visitor who came by boat.
Rhona checked her watch, conscious of the time. In Derek’s estimate she should allow a couple of hours for her trip to Start Island, paying attention to the tidal clock. She had no wish to get stranded there in the mist or the dark. Had the day been clearer she would have liked to check out the entire island including the lighthouse, but the main reason for her visit had to come first.
Derek had been right. The distance was deceptive, even more so with the lingering mist. The track ran to the north of the spit of land that stretched towards the causeway, keeping close to and a little above the shore. In parts, the double track had been so eroded by the sea that it had become single, with no chance of even a Land Rover negotiating the narrow passage between the field wall on the right-hand side and jagged rocks on the left.
Strange droppings underfoot caused her to stop for a closer look. Definitely not from sheep, they were black and fairly sizable. At a guess she would have said a big cat, but since the path was littered with the droppings, that would require a veritable pack of them, which of course was nonsense. Eventually she decided they’d most likely been deposited there by geese.
According to a leaflet she’d picked up at the heritage centre, the burgeoning wild geese population was a growing problem for farmers on Sanday – large flocks of the birds landing to strip the fields bare, ruining the crops. By the abundance of droppings, she could appreciate the problem.
At the end of the track the sand dwindled into shingle covered with rotting seaweed, both crusted and fresh. Rhona took a seat on a larger stone and removed her walking boots and socks, tying the laces to sling about her shoulders. She’d already decided to tackle the sandy crossing. Although the water was deeper there, it looked far less treacherous than the seaweed-strewn rocks amid the broken concrete of the former causeway.
I should have put on my wetsuit and swum across.
She’d brought the wetsuit with her in the hope that she might manage a little wild swimming from Sanday’s famous white beaches. That hadn’t been possible up to now, and since she was headed back later today, unlikely.
Maybe I’ll come back to Sanday under different circumstances.
Reaching the water’s edge, she braced herself and stepped in. It was certainly cold but not as freezing as some Highland rivers she’d swum in, particularly when they were running with melted snow. Beneath the clear water, the white sand was rippled in glorious patterns, with fronds of bright green seaweed spread out like fans.
The water at its deepest was past her knees. She realized the northern side of the causeway would fill rapidly as the tide came in, and wading like this would become swiftly impossible. Having made her way safely across, she donned her socks and boots and set out along the southern shore, ignoring the desire to follow the track to the lighthouse. Out here, the mist roamed the surface in tendrils, like long grey wisps of hair.
Eventually the shell beach crunched beneath her feet.
She’d completed the collection of her shell samples, and now with time to spare, Rhona didn’t see why she shouldn’t take a look a little further afield. The mist had fragmented and the distinctive black and white stripes of the lighthouse were clearly visible at least at the upper level.
She initially contemplated heading for the old farm buildings, which weren’t that far from the causeway, then decided instead to venture as far as the earth mound that sat a third of the way along the southern side.
According to the map, Start Island’s entire shoreline consisted of large slabs of flat rock, apart from the shell beach, which was probably why so many ships had foundered here. The main track that led to the lighthouse ran along the north coast. On the south side there was no obvious trail and she would just have to pick her way alongside the field walls that marked the division between farm and shore.
Birds swooped and called about her as she walked. Rhona wasn’t a bird watcher, but it was clear to see and hear that, even in autumn, Sanday was a place to come if you were a twitcher. She intermittently checked her watch, aware that once the tide began to turn, she had an hour or so to cross the causeway before things got tricky. Added to that, she’d planned to take a look at the old wartime mortuary before she headed for the ferry.
If I run out of time, I can always delay my departure until tomorrow.
Chrissy hadn’t been in contact yet, but that didn’t concern Rhona. Chrissy’s first task would be to properly log everything taken south, and besides, there was no signal out here on her mobile to take a call.
Across the stretch of Lopness Bay, she could now make out the distant shapes of the concrete-clad buildings of the radar station, although the two giant masts and the wooden huts that had housed a thousand personnel had long gone.
As she turned back to face the land, the burial mound emerged from the mist, or at least the summit of it did. Apparently Mount Maesry, or Mount Misery as it had come to be known, was a chambered cairn like Maeshowe on the Orkney mainland, or Quoyness, further south on Sanday. According to Sam it had been used for potato storage by the lighthouse men back in the twenties until the entrance had collapsed. It seemed a sacrilegious use of something so beautifully constructed to house the dead.
As she walked across the field, the sky darkened and the first heavy drops of rain met her face. Rhona upped her pace, hoping to find some shelter among the ancient stones.
28
Sam had barely slept. The fear he’d had for the child had continued to grow overnight, fed by the snippet of conversation he’d overheard through the door. He’d only met Mike Jones once, when he’d brought the magic flower into the heritage centre. The man had been staying close to home, not mixing much. Most Sanday folk were happy with that, content to give him time to get used to the place.
The island had many incomers now. It hadn’t been like that during his childhood, when most of the population had been born and raised here, or in the case of his mother, had come from Westray or the neighbouring North Ronaldsay. He didn’t mind people coming to live on Sanday. Without new blood, the island would have died long ago. They sometimes had false ideas about what island life was like, and found reality very different. Many couldn’t deal with the weather, or the isolation, and soon gave up.
Derek had been of the opinion that Mike Jones wouldn’t last the winter. Sam thought back to the tall, gangly figure. The man’s inability to meet his eye. His reaction when Sam explained what the flower stood for.
But is he a danger to the child?
That he couldn’t answer.
Rising before dawn, he prepared breakfast, taking solace in routine tasks. The continued absence of the wind was beginning to bother him. The house seemed too quiet, and the mist that enveloped the landscape a thick smothering blanket.
Being Saturday, he knew the child wouldn’t be at school, so he could expect a visit from he
r, usually accompanied by a request that she come to the museum with him. Her mother seemed happy with such an arrangement, pleased that Inga was interested in the history of the island her family had come from. Sam liked the child’s company, especially at this time of year, when there were few visitors to the centre.
Thinking of Inga and the school sparked another thought.
While he awaited the child’s arrival, Sam went back to looking through his mother’s things. Ella had been the keeper of the Flett family history. It was she who’d held the family bible, with all the births, deaths and marriages written inside the back cover. Being from Westray, she hadn’t gone to the school here, but his father had.
Maybe she kept information about the school and his father’s time there.
The thirteen flowers in the attic of the schoolhouse had bothered Sam enough to make him search the archives for any reference to multiple child deaths from pestilence or famine. Sanday had had its fair share of both, but having thirteen flowers laid together didn’t mean that those they represented had died at the same time. Derek apparently had said as much to Erling and Mike Jones. The flowers might have been originally kept in local crofts, then moved to the schoolhouse when it was built.
Sam hadn’t paid much attention to Ella’s bits and pieces after her death, feeling he was invading her privacy. Only the legal documents necessary to bury her and manage her estate had been sought. The tins and boxes that contained her memories, he’d felt were hers, and he hadn’t wanted to intrude.
Going through the contents now, he realized she must have saved every drawing he’d done for her as a child. He pulled out another of these. Not a war plane this time, or a space ship, but a sketch of the old red-brick mortuary. A shudder went through Sam.
I hated that place. I still do.
It wasn’t only drawings she’d kept. A bundle of his letters from university were there. A couple of postcards from when he’d gone travelling in Europe.
Then it struck him.
There were no childlike drawings done by Eric in Ella’s collection, which was hardly surprising since he’d been a teenager when Ella had married his father, but where were the letters from him after he’d left Sanday?
Sam hadn’t been born when Eric had left the island, so had no personal memories of his half-brother to call on. Later, his mother had told him that Eric had left to work down south somewhere, like Jamie, and they’d lost touch.
His father had never mentioned Eric or Jamie, and had frowned if Ella talked about them. Over time, the young Sam had come to understand that something bad had happened between Eric and his father. Something that must never be talked about.
An old faded school photograph was the final item in the box.
It had no date on it, but it must have been taken before the parish schools had amalgamated and the pupils moved to the central school. He wasn’t even sure that the building the children stood outside was the local schoolhouse. There were a few such photographs available on the heritage website, but this wasn’t one of them.
Sam searched the line of boys for someone who might possibly be his father. The boys, of different sizes and age, all looked very similar with their blank or startled faces, shocks of ill-cut hair, short trousers, thick socks and tackety boots. There was no one to his eye who looked like Geordie Flett, but then again, he’d only ever seen his father as a grown man.
Sam ran his eyes over the girls … and saw her. Dark hair cut straight just below her ears, a bright-eyed expression. That familiar smile so full of joy and excitement.
With a surge of pleasure Sam realized that he might be looking at an earlier version of Inga, a great-grandparent perhaps, or a long dead great-aunt? He thought how pleased the child would be when he showed her the picture. She would of course want to know who the girl was. Perhaps her mother might be able to pinpoint who in their family history it might be, and whether it had been taken at the local school.
If she didn’t know, he could display the photograph at the museum and ask if anyone could identify the children. If that didn’t work he would send a copy to the library in Kirkwall for their archives and see if anyone from further afield might throw light on where and when it had been taken, and the names of the pupils in it.
Pleased with his discovery, Sam tidied the box away and noted the time.
The child is usually here by now.
He went to the door and looked out but couldn’t see her house through the mist.
I’ll go there. Show Inga and her mum the picture from the newspaper. See if she wants to come to the museum with me.
Sam banked up the fire and headed out.
29
‘The creepy bastard. I knew he wasn’t telling us the whole story.’
‘He spoke to you about it, Sergeant?’
‘Last night in the hotel bar after someone called him a paedo,’ McNab said.
There was a moment’s silence as DI Flett absorbed this.
‘The kid Inga Sinclair’s been at his house,’ McNab said. ‘Rhona saw a drawing he’d done of her.’
Concern travelled the distance between them.
‘The girl involved was just short of her sixteenth birthday,’ DI Flett said. ‘She wasn’t twelve.’
‘Who the fuck cares? She’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘He didn’t kill her.’
‘But she died.’
‘Apparently the girl was troubled by bullying at school.’
‘And Mr Jones her Art teacher took pity on her. Thought if he painted her portrait and had sex with her it would help.’
DI Flett had had enough of his tone and told him so, which only served to remind McNab that he was no longer a DI himself.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said with just enough forced humility to make matters worse.
‘When are you heading back to Glasgow, Sergeant?’
At that moment he realized that DI Flett had no idea what had happened to him. McNab almost licked his lips in anticipation.
‘I don’t think I can leave now, sir.’
A pause.
‘Why?’
‘Because last night someone tried to kill me.’
Being interrogated by a superior officer over the phone was, he decided, much more fun than face to face. DI Wilson would, of course, have demolished him by now, either way. DI Erling Flett, McNab thought, was too nice, or he wasn’t sure of his ground.
‘I believe,’ McNab ended by saying, ‘that the attempt to silence me has something to do with the remains we found.’ He wasn’t certain that was true, but it was a sure-fire way of keeping him here.
There was a considered moment before DI Flett said, ‘Speak to the girl’s mother about her visit to the schoolhouse. We don’t know how much about the Jones case is common knowledge on Sanday, so keep it low key.’
McNab rang off then, thinking if he’d learned anything since he’d landed on this island, it was that news travelled fast.
He poured another cup of coffee before phoning PC Tulloch to ask where the hell he was.
‘I tried to call you, sir, but your phone was engaged.’ The constable sounded fraught. ‘Something’s happened, sir.’
‘What?’ McNab said.
‘Inga Sinclair’s gone missing.’
The child had left home around nine thirty, telling her mother she was going to Sam Flett’s and would be at the heritage centre with him most of the day. Sam had arrived at the Sinclair house at eleven wondering where Inga was. The track between the two houses had been searched as had the neighbouring beach. There had been no sign of Inga. The little gang of children had been contacted. All agreed that there had been no arrangement between them to meet. Inga usually went to the museum with Mr Flett on Saturdays.
Inga’s mother was distraught. Sam Flett even worse. When McNab had questioned why, the old man said he’d feared something bad would happen to the girl ever since the flowers in the attic had been disturbed. At that point McNab thought the pensioner had lost it, and stopped l
istening.
Rhona was nowhere to be found either. Calls to her mobile went unanswered. Her last remark to McNab had been that she had some forensic work to do before catching the late-afternoon ferry to Kirkwall. What work she’d referred to and where, McNab had no idea. The Ranger, Derek Muir, appeared to be off the radar too, so chances were he was accompanying Rhona.
McNab ordered PC Tulloch to organize as many locals as he could muster for a search party in the few remaining hours of daylight they had left. He then indicated that he was heading to the schoolhouse.
‘Sir, maybe it would be better—’
McNab’s expression froze the words in Tulloch’s mouth.
‘Call DI Flett. Tell him what’s happening,’ McNab ordered. ‘You use the vehicle to rally the troops. I’ll walk.’
It was a short but winding road from the Sinclair house to the old school. McNab reckoned he could walk it in ten minutes if he left the road and went cross-country, although he didn’t fancy meeting any of the local livestock, less keen on them than drunks on a Friday night in Sauchiehall Street.
Glasgow livestock I can manage.
The mist seemed reluctant to disperse, despite a movement of air that couldn’t yet be called a breeze. It was hard to believe he was in the same place where a gale had been lifting the roof only the other night.
The first three fields proved empty; the fourth had a herd of cattle that decided to check out the human emerging from the mist. McNab made for the wall at this point and climbed over onto the road.
The schoolhouse lay ahead, a couple of lights on, although it was only midday.
McNab realized that he disliked this room, almost as much as he disliked the man who stood facing him.
A rattled Mike Jones had professed to knowing nothing about Inga’s disappearance, insisting that he’d woken early and immediately gone to work on his extension.
‘So she didn’t come knocking at your door this morning?’ McNab said.