Ghosts of the Vikings

by Marsali Taylor

  ‘I’ll take your word that you thought of it first,’ Gavin said peaceably. He was twenty-three points ahead, so could afford to be complaisant. I noted Gavin’s score, then put my ‘l kewise’ around the useful ‘i’ that I’d created last shot. ‘Do you double the bonus too?’

  ‘No,’ Dad said, before Gavin could give his version of the rules. ‘It’s a bonus, not part of the score.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘Nice,’ Gavin approved, and began to inspect triple-word score opportunities.

  One thing I’d loved about Gavin’s house, at Christmas, was that both he and his brother, Kenny, were able to amuse themselves. It was something Dad had never learned. He leaned over to inspect Maman’s embroidery, got up to pace around the room, rolled Cat’s marble a couple of times, and came back to Maman. ‘Why don’t you come and sing, now, Eugénie. Some of the old songs that you used to sing as a treat for me.’

  Instead of braining him, Maman laughed, and put her frame away. ‘You mean the Irish songs your grandmother sang to you in your cradle. Charles, je peux me servir de ton clavier?’

  Charles gave a go-ahead wave of his hand without taking his eyes from his book. I supposed he was used to artistes slumming it with ballads. ‘I cannot even remember the words,’ Maman protested. She gave a ripple of notes up and down the keyboard, and began picking out ‘Danny Boy’, then changed to one that I didn’t consciously know, although the tune was hauntingly familiar, lifted her head, and sang.

  ‘The water’s wide, I can’t get o’er, nor have I got the wings to fly,

  Give me a boat, that will carry two, and we will sail, my love and I.’

  Gavin stopped sorting his tiles to listen, then raised his head and smiled at me before putting down ‘detoxed’ on a space that ended in a triple-word score.

  ‘Neat,’ I agreed.

  The lights flickered again, the keyboard faltered. Fournier rose from his armchair. ‘I know the lease says that there are to be no candles, but it looks like the lights will go out any minute. Sing while you can, Eugénie.’ He took the glass candle-jars from the fireplace, and set them on the table beside our board, laid his lighter beside them. ‘You see, I haven’t forgotten my Shetland.’

  I heard the door across the way open. Bryony and Per came in, as if drawn by the singing. Per sat down in Maman’s seat and began scrutinising my Scrabble rack. I remembered I was on my best behaviour, and resisted the natural impulse to hunch my shoulder and turn the rack away from him. Bryony went over to the keyboard. Maman smiled at her.

  ‘Dermot is persuading me to sing his Irish ballads, Bryony, do you know any?’

  Bryony shook her head. ‘Not the words. I know a few English ones. Do you know “The Ash Grove”?’

  ‘Sing it,’ Maman said, and gestured her to the piano. They followed it with the kind of show songs I’d have expected Maman to consider unspeakably vulgar, but I soon realised that she was just encouraging Bryony, because after they’d sung ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’, she stepped back to let Bryony take over with bits from Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon.

  There was no sign of Adrien. I checked my watch: ten to ten. I was just wondering if I should suggest that Per went up to see how he was when an extra-strong gust shook the house, the power went out, and we were plunged into darkness. For a moment it was intensely black, shocking you into stillness. Bryony gave a wailing gasp, and Maman’s voice came, steady and reassuring. ‘This happens often in Shetland.’ Five seconds more, and the moon’s light through the clouds flowed into the room. Now I could see shapes: Maman and Bryony, very still together against the window, Dad leaning by the other one, Fournier’s head opposite me.

  ‘I thought so,’ Fournier said. There was a snick, and the tiny flame of his lighter broke the darkness. He took out one of the chunky candles from the glass holders, and used it to light the others. The flames winked off the holders and doubled themselves in the windows and the paintings. Now the whole room glowed gold with a dazzle of tiny lights. I saw myself reflected in the window, small and dark against the blue couch, and rose.

  ‘I filled a Thermos earlier. Shall I bring us up a cup of tea?’

  ‘Oh, Cassandre, you are a jewel,’ Maman said. ‘Yes, if you please.’

  ‘Will the power stay off for long?’ Bryony asked.

  ‘Until they get it fixed,’ Dad said. Bryony made an alarmed face. ‘I’d be surprised if it’s back before morning, in this wind. Maybe you should save your hot water for morning tea, Cassie.’

  ‘I filled a Thermos for that too. I’m a native, remember.’ I smiled at Bryony. ‘And there are candles in hurricane glasses like these in every room. Think how romantic, to go to bed by candlelight.’

  She brightened slightly at that, and smiled across at Per, as if she didn’t expect to go to bed alone.

  ‘In that case,’ Maman said, ‘a tisane all around, and an early night for all.’

  Gavin came with me downstairs. ‘I’m not leaving you to do the classic girl goes for walk in lonely house in the dark with a murderer loose,’ he murmured in my ear as we came down the stairs together, cautiously, although the treads were clear enough in the silvery brightness of the halfway window. He lit a candle in the kitchen, and began setting mugs out while I sorted teapot and bags.

  We trudged back upwards. As we reached the landing we heard a door slam, and footsteps, then Adrien appeared, flushed still, his movements slow, as if he’d been sleeping. He followed us into the drawing room.

  I set the tray on the table, and we all squeezed onto the couches. Gavin’s thigh was warm against mine. I thought of the bed waiting in the pavilion and shivered, partly with nerves, partly with anticipation, and his hand came to curl around mine. Adrien leaned forward to look at the Scrabble board. ‘Who was winning?’

  ‘Even-steven,’ Gavin said. ‘All to play for.’

  ‘Someone had a good word here,’ Adrien said. His long finger stabbed the board; the dark ring glinted. ‘Twist, in this space.’

  Gavin’s hand quivered in mine, and I tightened my fingers in agreement. Given that my last score had been sixty-six, and Gavin’s had been forty-five, we weren’t going to waste letters on a mere eight-pointer, unless nothing better could be devised.

  I poured the tea and passed out the mugs. ‘Adrien, would you like one?’

  He waved it away. ‘No, no, I never drink tea at night.’ His voice was slowed too, his face smoothed of emotion. I wondered if he’d taken something, a tranquiliser, or maybe smoked a joint, although there was no smell of smoke on him, and surely Sergeant Peterson would have confiscated anything like that.

  We drank in silence. Around us, the flames stretched and shrunk, the glow and movement mirrored in their reflections, reflections of reflections from the windows facing each other, a string of flickering lights on the black glass. The wind wailed outside. Charles set his mug down, then rose to unplug his keyboard and put it away, the leads glistening like snakes in his hands. Bryony leaned back against Per with a sigh, cradling the mug in her hands. Maman turned her head to smile at Dad. Only Adrien was restless, moving the tiles on the board to form new words: sing, drive. My likewise became skewer, and Gavin’s detoxed turned to toxic. The silver band around the dark stone glinted as his fingers moved. House, brother – then, tiring of it, he swept the tiles together and tipped them back into the bag.

  ‘Bedtime, I think.’ Maman folded a white cloth back around her tambour frame, and slid it into the paisley-pattern bag that had belonged to her mother. ‘Are you sure, Cass, that you and Gavin will not be too cold?’

  ‘You won’t have any heating now either,’ I pointed out. She made a face at that, being a child of the sun, and rose.

  ‘In that case, goodnight.’ Her dark gaze swept around Adrien, Per and Bryony, Charles. ‘Be careful with the candles, please. It said most strictly in the lease that we were not to light any.’

  ‘I think a power cut counts as an exception to the rule,’ Dad said.

&nb
sp; Bryony reached forward to put the mugs back on the tray. ‘I’ll take these downstairs and put them in the sink, for tomorrow.’ Her face brightened. ‘There’ll still be hot water. I could have a bath by candlelight.’

  I wasn’t sure what Gavin would want to do, whether he’d feel we needed to see the others bunkered down before we went to bed, or whether we could just go. I looked at him uncertainly, and he rose. ‘Shall we brave the ice-house?’

  I stroked Cat. ‘Come on, boy. You’ve got a good coat.’ I rose, and he oozed onto the warm space of couch, but when we moved to the door and I called him again, he stretched, jumped down and followed. In the hall, I gestured at the bathroom. ‘Must just brush my teeth.’

  Gavin was still in the hall when I came out again, two wine glasses in his hand. ‘Your escort, mam’selle.’

  ‘Maybe we ought to have slept in the house,’ I said, as we came out into the howling night and battled, arms linked, to the pavilion. ‘Suppose something happens?’

  ‘If someone was being nefarious, they’d be quiet enough not to wake us anyway, if we were behind a shut door. We’re only a shout away.’ He opened the door for me, set the glasses on the table. ‘My teeth now. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  The moonlight glinted into the little room. I’d found my clean clothes for tomorrow by touch, and was just about to go upstairs when I heard footsteps outside; not from the gravel in front of the house, but from behind the curved wall that ran between the house and the pavilion. There was no reason why Gavin should have come that way, and my feet were moving to the door even while my brain was still registering how implausibly quick he’d been. It wasn’t his footstep on the briggistane. This was a heavier tread, trying to be silent; there was just one step on the gravel, then nothing, as if he’d moved onto the grass. I waited in the darkness, calculating, heart pounding. If I was quick, I might be able to run to the safety of the house before this person reached the door. I put my hand on the handle, then froze as a dark shadow passed the window: a man, tall, bulky. There was only one place I could hide. I dived for the cupboard under the stairs, praying the snap ball wouldn’t click as I opened it, and slid inside. There was no handle on the other side; I pulled it to behind me. Outside, there was a scrape of feet on the low wall that ran from the pavilion to the iron gates, a thud as someone jumped down. Now he was two metres from the door. Gavin, come soon ...

  The cupboard door opened into a space big enough to house mops, brooms, pails, all the tools the maid who’d once lived here would have needed. Now it was empty, with only the electricity metre on one wall, and a couple of cardboard boxes on the floor. Behind them was the space I’d noticed earlier, running forward under the stair. I swung into it, feet first, curled my legs into the space under the bottom step, and squeezed my body after it. There was dust in my nostrils, and the resin smell of pine. I heard the hand on the door just as I drew the nearest box in behind me. A serious search wouldn’t miss me, but I hoped he’d have no time for that, and I knew from Peerie Charlie how hard it could be to drag a reluctant person from a small space. If he found me, I’d hold him off till help came.

  The door whispered open. His breathing was only a metre above my head. He stepped in, his shadow falling on the door-crack in the moony dusk of the room, and waited there for what felt like a minute, breath held. I held mine too. My left foot was protesting at the cramped angle it was held in. I flexed my toes in my shoes, and hoped fervently it wouldn’t turn to a spasm of cramp. Then, at last, he moved. I felt the floor vibrate as he turned, the pressure of his foot on my knee as he placed it on the first step, silent as a feather falling on water. The second stair creaked, and he took the rest in a rush, thumping past my body, my chest, my head. I heard his feet skid to a halt as he took in the smooth bed, the empty room. Claws scrabbled on the wood as Cat leapt away.

  Now was my chance to escape, except that he’d hear every move I made. The hairs were prickling on the back of my neck. I didn’t want to wait here to be caught like a lobster in a trap, but if I followed the impulse to come out, I’d be caught even more surely. He’d hear me moving under the wooden stairs and be waiting at the door once I’d uncurled myself. No, I had to sit it out, and prepare to split the night with screams if he found me.

  Then, oh praise be, I heard the clunk of the house door shutting, and the click of Gavin’s shoes on the stone flags. The man above heard it too. I heard his foot scrape on the floor as he turned, then he thundered down the wooden steps, wrenched the door open and ran into the night. Pulling myself out, I heard the thud as he vaulted over the low wall, the scumble of feet on grass, then the rattle of gravel. I shoved my concealing box aside, hauled myself out from under the stairs and leapt for the door.

  Gavin had seen him. Now there were two sets of running feet, one on grass, one retreating on gravel. Gavin was running straight for the pavilion. I waved to show I was fine, and immediately he swerved to give chase. We swung over the low wall together and charged around the house, Gavin overtaking me within a few steps. He was around the corner of the house before I was, but when I arrived at the porch door he was standing and shaking his head. ‘Lost him. He probably went into the house.’ He looked towards the drive, curving away into the long shadow of the wall, and Peter’s yellow house behind it, then up at the farm. ‘No sign, but then he’d just have to stand still to be invisible.’ He put out one hand to me. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine. I heard him coming and hid under the stairs, preparing to scream like blazes if you didn’t get back in time.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  I shook my head. ‘Tall, bulky. It could have been any of the three of them.’

  ‘Four.’ Gavin took a last, long, breath, straightened up, and began to lead the way to the pavilion.

  I stared at him. ‘You’re not thinking Dad had anything to do with this!’

  His arm came around me, warm in the cold wind. ‘Don’t be daft. You’re forgetting Caleb. He may have gone to the mainland, but there’s nothing preventing him from having come back before the ferries stopped, is there?’

  I hadn’t thought of Caleb. ‘I didn’t hear a car, though the wind would have masked the noise of it, or it could be parked at the road end of the drive, behind the modern houses.’

  ‘There’s no point in going into the house now. Our perp will be just coming out of one of the bathrooms, meek as a mouse. When you said three ...?’

  ‘Adrien, Per, Fournier. They’re all tall, and both Adrien and Fournier are broad-shouldered. Per could look bulky in a jacket blown out by the wind.’

  ‘Worry about it in the morning.’ Gavin opened the door for me. ‘Our ice-house, Ms Lynch. Shall we see if the champagne helps?’

  ‘I think we should,’ I agreed, and turned to kiss him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was woken by my phone ringing. For a moment I didn’t know where I was, with the floor firm below me, and no sound of water rippling at my ear, and the warmth of another body against mine. Gavin moved, sleepily reaching out across me, and I recognised him; then I remembered coming to bed together, and smiled. He realised where he was too, and changed the arm movement into a hug. ‘It’ll be for you,’ he murmured.

  I reached for the phone and fumbled it silent. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Lass, it’s Keith Sandison here. The folk wi’ the pig-snout masks are come back, to the site by Lund House this time. I’ll go and keep an eye on what they’re up to, but I thought Gavin might want to call the other police officers, the ones that are biding up at Baltasound.’

  ‘I’ll put you onto him.’ I passed the phone over, realising as I did so that soon the whole of Unst, and by evening the whole of Shetland, would know that Gavin and I were now sharing a bed. Damn. It would be nice to keep some things private. I stretched and curled against his warm back, listening.

  ‘Yes, I’ll let her know ... yes ... we’ll be with you as quickly as possible.’ He switched the phone off, turned over to return it and hug me, then
sat up. ‘Trouble at t’mill.’ His Yorkshire accent was awful. He stretched out a hand for his own phone while I felt for my watch and pressed the button to make the face luminous. Ten to midnight. No wonder I felt as if I’d only just fallen asleep. The wind was still rattling the slates above our head, prising at the skylight. The moon had moved to slant on the wall above our heads, making the room just light enough to see Gavin’s outline beside me, the white blur of my T-shirt on the floor. Cat was a warm heavy weight on my feet.

  Gavin was explaining the situation to Sergeant Peterson. I didn’t move a muscle. She was top of the list of people who didn’t need to know about my private life. Then I realised that if I tagged along – which I had every intention of doing – it would be obvious anyway. Tough.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Gavin finished. ‘I’ll meet you at the main road.’ He put the phone down, sighed and began to get up, fumbling for his clothes. I rolled over and slid off the mattress. The floor was freezing, even colder than my Khalida’s cabin sole, and naturally my clothes were at the same temperature. I hauled them on as quickly as possible.

  ‘I would say you can’t come,’ Gavin said, ‘except that I don’t want to leave you here alone, after last night. I may need to leave you in the car.’

  Naturally he knew as well as I did that if anything exciting was going on, the only way he’d keep me in the car was with handcuffs. ‘I’ll be good,’ I promised.

  The garden was sinister in the moonlight, the wooden fences of the maze garden casting shadows like prison bars, with the roof of the gazebo as a hump-backed gaol. The wind twisted the shadows of the bushes, and rattled the branches against the wood. We clambered over the wall and crept out through the further garden, then mar-ched briskly along the drive. There was a flash of head-lights in the distance, which disappeared behind the shoul-der of the hill and reappeared, two yellow stars swooping down the road towards us. The police car stopped, and we clambered in. Sergeant Peterson was driving. ‘If they’re actually on scheduled land,’ she said, ‘we can confiscate their equipment. I thought we could suggest they leave Shetland as well. We’ll deliver their stuff to the boat when they’re on it.’ Her voice suggested she knew she was exceeding police authority, and didn’t care.