by Gwen Moffat
The tide had turned, but it was still high; she could hear the water rippling. From the hotel came the faint beat of a jukebox. A dog barked out on the lighthouse road, an owl called in the North Wood to be answered by another from the direction of the islands. There was no moon and only a few stars were visible. The night was mild and still. Campbell’s van stood behind her own, their roofs gleaming in the light of the street lamp. There was no sign of the man. She was glad Beatrice had telephoned; without that brief conversation she would not have known he was alive. She wished he would come and drive away and give her proof that he existed, but the van waited mutely and nothing moved.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dan Butchart was the proprietor of the Isle Chrona, a large sweaty man who, out of season, did most of the work of the establishment. On Sunday mornings he drove to Morvern for the newspapers and, after the return of his white Volvo had been observed, a trickle of people made their way along the street, and the crofters came in from the lighthouse road. Collecting the Sunday paper was a ritual, on fine days an occasion for gossip.
This morning was dry if not exactly fine; there was an onshore breeze, and surf bloomed about the skerries. The islands looked near enough to touch. As people walked past Campbell’s van they betrayed no interest in it; only on the quay, standing outside the hotel, did they look towards the vehicle – perhaps feeling that speculation was safe at a distance.
Miss Pink, coming down the steps of the hotel with her Observer, noting the sudden silence of a group of crofters about Duncan Millar, wondered what they had been saying, and forgot them as Beatrice approached wearing an ancient Burberry and gumboots. She looked as if she hadn’t slept. She nodded and glanced meaningly at the crofters.
‘I’ll wait and walk back with you,’ Miss Pink said, and went to stand at the edge of the quay. A few boats lay stranded by the ebb tide, but there was no sign of Blue Zulu. From this point the house that had been broken into, Camas Beag, was obvious at the head of a small clearing. She was still staring at it when Beatrice said from behind her, ‘Did you hear him at his van last night?’
She turned. ‘You think he couldn’t start the engine? I didn’t hear anyone at all. He must have changed his mind.’
They started to walk back to the street, Beatrice staring fixedly at Campbell’s van.
‘He went back to the island,’ Miss Pink said comfortably. ‘That’s where he’ll be now, having a lie-in. Do you realise that he’s rowing? There was no outboard motor running last night.’
‘People would hear the outboard.’
Miss Pink glanced sideways, made to comment, then changed her mind. ‘But he’s promised to come in for treatment?’
Beatrice threw her a wild look. ‘Oh, yes. Monday. I promised to arrange it – the doctor’s appointment. Monday morning.’
As Miss Pink was considering this, Esme overtook them, carrying a plastic bag like a baby in her arms, a posture sometimes adopted when one is carrying something heavy and breakable – like a bottle. Esme was tight-lipped and there was a defiant gleam in her eye. Tension did not become her; the plain features were sullen and when she spoke she sounded rude. ‘You look ghastly,’ she told Beatrice. ‘Don’t let it get you down.’
‘What?’
‘Only a manner of speaking. You’re snappy this morning.’
‘Don’t be impertinent.’
Esme gaped. Miss Pink was blinking in surprise.
‘I’m sorry,’ Beatrice muttered. ‘I didn’t sleep much last night, and then ... looking for Campbell, not knowing where he was, what he’d done, his state of mind – you know?’
‘I should have been searching.’ Esme was contrite.
‘It’s immaterial,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He’s safe.’
‘He was,’ Beatrice put in and they stared at her, then at the van.
‘You’re keeping something back,’ Miss Pink said, and her eyes went to Esme, who flared up like a firework.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I meant Beatrice was keeping something back.’
‘You looked at me!’
‘All right, what are you keeping back?’
Esme’s jaw dropped. Beatrice said quickly, ‘I’m afraid we’re back where we started. I told you what he said last night. I think he may have changed his mind after he left my house.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Miss Pink was at a loss, feeling that things were happening fast and yet she had little or no idea of what was happening. ‘Just because he didn’t move his van? Where did he intend taking it?’ Esme was following this with interest, making no move to interrupt.
Beatrice said, ‘He wasn’t going back to the island, except to collect his gear. It wasn’t safe. He was adamant on that point: a quick visit to the island, back to the village and then he’d move the van. He said he’d sleep in it.’
‘You might have told me that last night,’ Miss Pink grumbled.
‘I promised to keep it quiet. He was terrified of discovery; that was why he wouldn’t sleep on the island: because we found his camp.’
‘He’s scared of us?’
‘Coline would tell too many people.’
‘Including the obvious one,’ Esme said coldly. ‘He had good cause to be terrified.’
Miss Pink rounded on her. ‘Had?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘The past tense?’
‘Figure of speech.’
‘So who did he have cause to be frightened of?’
‘The same person who’s sending anonymous letters.’
Before Miss Pink could respond to this, Beatrice said firmly, ‘I want to go out to the island. Esme, will you take me in Sinclair’s dinghy?’
‘I’ll come too,’ Miss Pink said.
Beatrice hesitated, then nodded. ‘All right. You could be an asset.’ She seemed oblivious of her own rudeness.
* * *
The barnacle geese had gone when they approached the island and there was no sign of a boat. They landed and approached the camp-site in the birches. The tent was still there, flysheet and inner tent unfastened, the flaps hanging loose. ‘Campbell?’ Beatrice called, as Miss Pink had done yesterday. There was no reply. She looked at Miss Pink who swallowed, stepped forward and lifted a flap. No one was inside.
A meal had been prepared. The stove stood to one side, a can had been emptied, beans were in a dixie with a spoon. The dixie stood on the grass under the flysheet. Miss Pink touched the metal; it was cold.
‘But it was too hot for the groundsheet,’ she observed. ‘He’d turned out the stove and taken the dixie off the burner. Just as he was about to start eating, he put down the dixie and came out. Why?’
They stood up and looked around. There was only a screen of birches behind the tent, which had been pitched close to the edge of the island where the ground dropped vertically for some thirty feet to the water. The heather was so dense that, suspecting an overhang, they didn’t approach the edge. A few yards away an outcrop of sandstone formed a small prow. From this they could look down into water so clear that they could see the bottom ten feet below the surface.
‘What do you think happened?’ Esme asked.
Beatrice looked as if she were in shock. Miss Pink said, ‘Well, he was disturbed at his supper, that’s obvious.’ She thought about this, then added, ‘Not breakfast, I would think ... His sleeping bag is rolled up; one would imagine it would be unrolled if he’d just got out of it to make breakfast.’
‘He wouldn’t spend the night here,’ Beatrice insisted. ‘Whatever happened was important enough to make him leave everything and not come back.’
‘You mean he jumped in his boat and pushed off?’ Esme asked. ‘So where did he go?’
‘Where was he all day yesterday?’ Miss Pink asked of Beatrice.
‘He was on the mainland. He rowed to the shore when he saw us coming out to the islands and he hid among the rocks until we’d gone.’
‘Then we’ll go and see if he’s there no
w.’
Esme took the boat by the shortest route to the shore and they came to a rock-fringed cove with a burn splashing down slabs at the back. The sand was covered with sheep droppings and was too deep and dry to hold footprints, but there was a corner which was probably awash at low tide and where a boat would be concealed from the view of anyone on the islands. Then they discovered a narrow sheep path running parallel with the shore, and where it crossed the burn there were the marks of cleated soles in the mud.
Miss Pink turned to Beatrice and said bluntly, ‘He’s gone, his boat’s gone, but his van’s still here. Do we start to look for him all over again, or is it a waste of time?’
Esme stared at her, then transferred her gaze to Beatrice who bit her lip and turned to look at the islands. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said.
‘Do you suggest we start looking?’
Beatrice didn’t answer. ‘We go back then?’ Miss Pink pressed, ‘and inform the police?’
Her tone roused the old lady from a kind of torpor, ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I can’t help you. I’m at a loss. Yes, go back. The more people who know, the better – I suppose. We need a lot of people to search.’ She held Miss Pink’s eye. ‘The last thing he told me,’ she said, gathering strength, ‘was that in no circumstances would he sleep on the island – because of these people who were after him. He would fetch his gear and drive out of the village to somewhere safe. I suggested that he should go to Debbie in Pitlochry; there was nothing to keep him here. The appointment with the doctor was a red herring – to convince people he wasn’t going to run when in fact he meant to get as far away as possible. Obviously he hasn’t gone.’
On their return, Beatrice directed Esme to bring the boat in to the steps below the hotel where it would be more accessible if it were needed later. The steps did not dry out at low tide. They left Esme at her cottage and went on to the police house. Joan Knox came to the door; her husband was at his dinner, she said, flustered. She showed them into an overfurnished sitting room and shortly afterwards Knox entered, apologising for keeping them waiting. Beatrice told him what they had found on the island.
He looked from one to the other. ‘You reckon he’s put an end to himself?’ he asked, without surprise. He would have discussed the possibility with Ranald yesterday.
Beatrice said unhappily, ‘I think he’s finally lost control. He was close to the edge last night.’
Knox sighed. ‘And there’s no sign of his boat. It looks as if he went down the loch. I hope he didn’t get as far as the open sea. Would he be that mad? A helicopter is what we’re needing, but they’ll say at headquarters the expense isn’t warranted – they’ll talk about the taxpayer. They know Campbell, you see. No one takes any notice of him now, but years ago someone took him seriously, so there is a record. And as mad as he is, he could have put ashore anywhere between here and the skerries, and if it was on the north side he might be holed up in an empty cottage like we thought yesterday. Are you suggesting we should search the same places all over again?’ if he’s mad, we should look for him,’ Beatrice persisted. ‘You’d look for a mental patient. What about bringing in dogs?’
‘We wouldn’t know where to start.’
Miss Pink said, if a tent were found in the mountains, abandoned in this fashion, a rescue team would be called in. It’s good practice for them. No expense to the taxpayer, and they have dogs.’
Knox looked at her with admiration. ‘Now that’s a very good point, ma’am. I’ll get in touch with the local team. Most of them come from around Morvern.’
But Sunday afternoon was not a good time to assemble a mountain rescue team; by two o’clock only six members had reached Sgoradale, and they had no dogs. Meanwhile a total of four boats had been put in the water, and throughout the remaining hours of daylight searchers scoured the loch shores looking, not for Campbell so much as for his boat which would be conspicuous. Like most Highlanders, Campbell wore drab clothing that would blend with heather and rock.
On the land Coline alerted her tenants and, by delegating much of the work, she saw to it that all the empty cottages – including Camas Beag – were searched a second time. On foot, on horseback and by Land Rover, every bothy and ruin was visited, and several crofters combed the North Wood with their sheepdogs. The situation took on an added urgency as the afternoon wore on and the wind freshened from the south-west.
‘Front coming in,’ Coline observed to Miss Pink as they came out of Lone Bothy. This had been a shepherd’s cottage, but no one had lived in it for over a decade. Five miles inland from Sgoradale, in the lee of a mountain called Ben Tee, it was visited only by stalkers in bad weather, and by mountaineers using it as a way station or a base for exploring the central massif. It was unlocked, but too far from a road to attract vandals. There was nothing inside except bare boards and a grate, the ashes of which were cold. No one had stayed here recently.
Something moved on the slope of the mountain and Miss Pink’s eyes sharpened, but before she could raise the binoculars Coline said, ‘The deer are moving down. We’re in for a wet night. I’m glad we don’t have to walk back.’
Two ponies were tied to a rowan tree. A stocky cob had been found for Miss Pink, for which she’d been thankful as they’d splashed along the line of a rough track which was wet even after weeks of drought.
‘He’d never come here anyway,’ Coline remarked as they mounted and turned for home. ‘There are too many places available to him around the village.’
‘Everywhere has to be checked,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Even the improbable places. One doesn’t know how his mind is working.’
‘What made him flip, d’you suppose? After all, he’s been here for ten years and stayed roughly at the same level: some lows and highs perhaps, but nothing ever approaching this kind of behaviour. Suddenly he goes to pieces. Do you have a theory?’
‘I’ve only been here eight days!’
‘That’s a cop-out. You’ve listened to us, you know the background.’
‘I wasn’t investigating a crime. There was no need to ask probing questions. Remember, nothing happened out of the ordinary until Thursday night with the first fire, the abortive one. I’ve had no time to form an opinion.’
‘You’re hedging.’
‘I assure you, I’m as bewildered as anyone else. I can’t think why he should have chosen this moment to vanish ... There’s a spot of rain; what do you say to a turn of speed?’
Her pony leapt forward and Coline’s followed. By the time the riders had slowed them to a hand gallop, awkward questions had been forgotten, to Miss Pink’s relief. And as they came trotting along the rim of the escarpment all thoughts of Campbell faded before the outlook. Only a few miles distant long skirts of rain were trailing up the loch.
The ponies jolted down the zig-zags and the first shower met them as they entered the stable yard.
CHAPTER NINE
Sgoradale awoke to drizzle and low cloud, and to a feeling of disorientation as people remembered that one of their number was still missing. News had gone round that Debbie had been contacted, but her reactions weren’t known. Her mother’s home was not on the telephone and all that Knox could say was that
Debbie had been seen by Pitlochry police and that Campbell was not with her.
As she lay in bed listening to water dripping from a faulty gutter, Miss Pink reflected that her own mood of indecision and vague resentment could prevail throughout the village. She thought she might stroll along to Feartag for coffee, although she would wait until later before calling Beatrice. They had spoken on the phone last evening after the visit to Lone Bothy, but there was nothing definite to say and they both recognised that speculation was futile. They had rung off with the ritual if forlorn hope that Campbell would turn up tomorrow.
She bathed and dressed and went next door for a bottle of milk. To her surprise Alec was behind the counter, not serving, but contemplating packets of cereal. She smiled in genuine pleasure and said the fi
rst thing that came to mind: ‘How nice to see you about again,’ then checked, thinking it might be unwise to refer to his condition, however obliquely.
But Alec was in no way disconcerted; in fact he returned her smile. ‘I been about,’ he said, ‘It’s just that I didn’t go out till yesterday, and you were away with Lady Coline to Lone.’
After a fractional pause she said, ‘You were looking for Ivar too?’
‘He was.’ Rose came in and bustled along the back of the counter. She glanced at two packets in Alec’s hands, and said indulgently, ‘Take them both, son, and go and get your breakfast.’ She pushed him towards the living quarters and turned to Miss Pink, smiling brightly. ‘Oh, yes, he was out searching for Ivar –’ She grimaced and gestured at Alec’s back. All pulling our weight, aren’t we?’ she went on loudly. ‘Milk, was it, Miss Pink? Anything else?’ She leaned over the counter, her face resuming its natural lines, her voice low. ‘I let him out with his father for a wee while. They didn’t go out of my sight: walked down the quay a ways, Alec with his dad’s field-glasses. Gave him a breath of air, didn’t it? Half an hour, I thought, that can’t do any harm; half an hour a day, could it now?’
‘Perhaps increasing it each day?’ Miss Pink suggested. ‘Or going out more than once?’
‘Well ...’ Rose considered, fingering her lips, eyeing Miss Pink uncertainly, ‘the outing yesterday didn’t seem to take too much out of him; maybe he can do a little more today, with me or his father. There’s no question of allowing him out on his own. I mean –’ she caught herself suddenly’ – he could do himself an injury: fall off the quay, walk in front of a car. There’s no knowing what might happen, is there?’
Miss Pink went home, reflecting that she was only a visitor; it wasn’t her place to suggest that protection could go too far. She was eating her breakfast when Alec shuffled jerkily past her window, alone but talking with great animation. Unable to help herself she opened the door and stared after him – and her expression softened. His irregular progress was occasioned by a small round sheepdog puppy which was alternately scampering at his heels and sitting down to worry its scarlet leash. She turned, smiling, to find herself observed by Rose who was standing in her own doorway.