While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  Zoe leaned her head back against the wall and took in the furnishings: the cheap pine wardrobe, the floral curtains, the white flat-pack bedside table between the twin beds with its old-fashioned clock radio. She vaguely remembered an old horror movie about a guy who had stayed in a hotel room with twin beds and woken in the night to find the other bed had been slept in. She closed her eyes and tried to look fine; there was a very real risk that Kaye might offer to stay in the room with her if she diagnosed a troubled aura. The stuff in her mug smelled revolting – bits of unidentified leaf floated on the surface – but the hefty measure of whisky Mick had poured her when they arrived had been welcome; now all she wanted was to lie down.

  ‘See, I heard you on the phone.’ Kaye lowered her voice. ‘Before you hung up, you shouted, “Leave me alone.” I knew you weren’t talking to me. I said to Mick, it’s started. I knew you were in trouble.’

  ‘Actually, I thought you were my mother,’ Zoe said, trying to raise a laugh, but it sounded hollow. She opened her eyes; Kaye wasn’t smiling. She laid a hand on Zoe’s arm.

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I told Mick you weren’t the right person for the house when you first emailed. I said to him – a woman on her own, she shouldn’t be there. Wait and see is there someone more suited to a place like that. But you were the first one and he so wanted to get a tenant in, he was fretting about the money. He wouldn’t listen to me.’ She pursed her lips and shook her head.

  ‘Why didn’t you want to live there, Kaye? That beautiful big house Mick’s so proud of.’

  Kaye hesitated, clearly torn between loyalties. ‘It’s not—’ She stopped and began on a different tack. ‘See, the thing you have to know about me, Zoe – I’m very sensitive in that regard. My grandmother had the gift, and it’s passed down.’ She leaned closer, her eyes searching Zoe’s for a sign of recognition. ‘Course, Mick doesn’t believe in any of that. Or he doesn’t want to. But for someone like me, it would be a torment, to live in a place that had psychic disturbances. And I have to think of my girls too – I don’t know if either of them have the gift yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised, and children are highly attuned to energy fields.’

  Zoe blinked. Part of her wanted to laugh. ‘So, you think the house really is haunted?’

  Kaye tilted her head from one side to the other as if to avoid outright confirmation. ‘Look, Zoe. You’ve heard the old story by now. You can’t tell me a place with that kind of history isn’t going to hold it in its psychic memory. Now, some folk – that sort of thing won’t affect them at all, they could live there and not even notice. Others … well.’ She held out her hands, palms up, as if the conclusion was self-evident. ‘And I think you’re the second type, Zoe. You can sense things. Like me.’

  ‘Like Charles,’ Zoe murmured, without quite meaning to speak aloud. Before she came to the island, she would have regarded a woman like Kaye as a dippy crank, as unlike her as it was possible to be, with her crystal amulets and her auras and her gross herbal tea. Now, she was not so sure. Perhaps Kaye was right; she certainly seemed to have developed the ability to sense things she could not explain since she had moved into the house. Charles had suggested it was because she was vulnerable; even now, his presumption caused her to prickle with anger, largely because it was accurate.

  ‘Aye, Charles is a very dark horse,’ Kaye whispered, with a smile that betrayed reluctant affection. ‘He dresses it up in all his intellectual language, but he’s got the gift and then some. I can always spot people who have. That’s why I knew about you.’

  ‘You mean, he’s psychic?’ She pictured Charles’s precise professorial manner and almost laughed, until she also remembered his knowing eyes, and the unnerving way his offhand references seemed designed to suggest he knew more about her than she had been willing to share. No – it was impossible.

  ‘Psychic? He’s a fucking wizard, if you ask me. Don’t tell him I said that.’ Kaye grinned. ‘Listen to me – it’s two in the morning. You’ll be wanting to sleep.’ She pushed herself to her feet and yanked the belt of her robe tighter. ‘I’ll fetch you a clean towel. Do you want me to stay in here with you tonight, if you’re worried? It’s no trouble.’ She indicated the spare bed.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Zoe said, smiling reassuringly until her jaw hurt. ‘I’ll be out like a light. I’m so sorry again for disturbing your night.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Like Mick said – you can call us anytime. I totally understand,’ she added, in a confiding whisper.

  Zoe waited until the door had closed and reached for the small bag she had brought with her. Though all her muscles felt drained and her eyes gritty with exhaustion, her racing thoughts refused to slow and she knew sleep would elude her here. She tried to curl up under the floral duvet but a peculiar dull ache persisted in the pit of her stomach and she recognised it as homesickness. To distract herself, she took out the few items she had grabbed before leaving: a toothbrush, a clean T-shirt, her cell phone and charger and the copy of Charles’s book on world myths. She opened it at the end and flicked through the index until she found what she was looking for, then turned back and began to read the chapter headed Incubus.

  14

  ‘I saw that shepherd again last night,’ she told Mick as he drove her back through the village the next morning. The wind had dropped and high, white clouds drifted across a pale sky; the small town with its pastel-washed cottages looked benign against the distant hills. In daylight, the events of the night before appeared painfully foolish to Zoe. She had slept until eleven thirty, when Kaye had woken her with a cup of tea, pressing her to stay longer. She would have liked to ask for their Wi-Fi password so that she could pre-empt Dan’s next intrusion with a blandly reassuring email, but it had been clear that Mick was impatient to give her a lift back and deal with the locks, as he’d promised, so that he could return to work. She would call home later, she told herself, once she’d figured out what she wanted to say.

  ‘What shepherd?’ he said.

  ‘Out on the moors. The one I saw the night you rescued me on the bike. But he vanished.’

  Mick looked blank.

  ‘I don’t know who that would have been. There’s no sheep on that side of the hills.’

  ‘You were the one who told me it was a shepherd. Someone must live out there, right? He seems to walk off the road into nowhere. Or she,’ she added, recalling with a flicker of unease the impression of long skirts.

  Mick gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Aye. Well. The old crofters know the paths across the moor better than anyone. There’s no many of them left now. Look, Zoe –’ he turned to her, his face anxious – ‘we were talking, me and Kaye. You don’t have to go back to the house if you’re no comfortable. I’m going to call a guy I know on the mainland and see about getting an alarm put in, but it might take him a week or so. I never thought about it before – like I say, this is the kind of place people really do leave their doors unlocked. But if it would make you feel safer … And you’re welcome to stay with us at the pub till it’s done. Or –’ he shifted his gaze back to the road, his mouth set in resignation – ‘if you’ve changed your mind altogether, we can refund the rest of the month. I’d understand.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she began, before her attention was caught by the row of shops on the village’s main street. ‘The bookshop’s closed,’ she remarked, as they passed. ‘Is that normal, on a Monday?’

  ‘Don’t ask me what’s normal when it comes to that man,’ Mick said. ‘So, you’re saying you’re happy to stay?’ His surprise was evident in his tone.

  ‘I hope he’s OK.’ Zoe craned her neck back to watch the shuttered windows of the bookshop disappearing in the rear window. A twinge of alarm caught her; she thought about asking Mick to let her out so that she could go back and check, but feared she had tested his patience far enough.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ Mick put his foot down as the road left the village and straightened to rise across the broad
expanse of moorland ahead. ‘You saw him last night, didn’t you? You and young Ed Sinclair.’

  There was an undercurrent of reproach in his voice, and Zoe could not discern whether his disapproval was directed at her for accepting invitations from Charles, or because there was already talk in the village about her and Edward.

  ‘He invited us for dinner,’ she said mildly. She could hardly tell Mick that the cause of her anxiety was having left Charles alone with Ailsa McBride’s journal.

  ‘Aye. Poking over the old story, no doubt.’ His jaw flexed. ‘See, I know I can’t stop you taking an interest, it’s only natural. But for Charles to be indulging his obsession at your expense – that’s no fair on you or me.’ He shook his head. ‘And then it’s no surprising if you get back there in the dark and start imagining things, and we all have to—’ He broke off, pressing his lips together.

  ‘Run around after me.’

  ‘That’s no what I meant. It’s no problem for you to call us anytime if you’re bothered about something, I’ve told you that. I’m only saying maybe spending all that time listening to Charles is no exactly helping you feel at home in the house.’

  Though Zoe had spent the night trying to find rational explanations, frequently doubting the evidence of her senses, she found Mick’s insinuations insulting. He would not have said the same thing to a man, she thought, anger knitting tight in her chest. If a man had said he suspected a break-in, Mick would have taken him seriously, whereas she could be dismissed as a credulous hysterical woman.

  ‘You really don’t believe there’s anything in those old stories about the house?’ she asked, turning to him. ‘In all the time you were growing up here, and then working on it, you never encountered anything unusual?’

  ‘Course not.’ He answered so quickly and decisively that Zoe knew he was lying.

  ‘Kaye believes it,’ she persisted. ‘She gave me a whole bunch of white sage to ward off evil.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ His mouth tightened. ‘That’s an ongoing bone of contention, believe me.’

  ‘I heard about the kid who disappeared up there last summer. That must have been terrible.’

  She watched Mick closely, noting how his knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel, and the way the colour ebbed from his face. It took a while before he seemed composed enough to reply.

  ‘Aye. It was a dreadful accident. That’s what it was. Couple of boys messing around at night, trying to spook each other. And they wouldn’t have been up there in the first place if people here weren’t obsessed with the past. So you can see why I get pissed off with all this haunted house shite.’ He was struggling to keep his voice under control. ‘But I blame myself too, how could I not?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Should have paid a night watchman to keep an eye on the place. It seemed like a waste of money at the time – I didn’t think anyone would bother going out there to rob the building supplies and I had men on site all day. I never thought about kids playing games. There’s no a day goes by I don’t think about that wee boy.’ His voice closed up and Zoe saw that he was fighting to contain his emotion.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said gently. ‘No one could think that. They shouldn’t have been there.’

  ‘Course they fucking shouldn’t. But they were ten years old.’ His shoulders slumped, the defensive posture leached out of him. ‘I used to ride my bike out there with my mates when I was that age, same as them, daring each other to call up the witch’s ghost. It was a ruin back then. I should’ve remembered the attraction.’

  Zoe wanted to ask him about the boy’s phone, and what he thought about the theory that Robbie Logan had killed his friend, but she could see how distressed the subject made him and decided to leave it.

  ‘The boy was never found?’ she ventured, after a while.

  ‘No. They think he must have gone off the cliff. Nothing supernatural about it at all.’ Mick swallowed hard. ‘It was a terrible thing for the whole community, you can imagine. The family left the island in the end, they couldn’t stand to be here. There was no way I was ever getting Kaye to move out to the house afterwards, so there was the end of that plan. All that money.’ He flinched, as if the memory caused him physical pain. ‘And there were plenty of folk who did think it was my fault, you know? Said I’d stirred up trouble by not leaving the old things buried. As if they hadn’t all been out there in their day, hunting for ghosts or trying to get laid, one time or another. Folk said no one would last long out here, and I suppose they’ll be proved right.’

  Zoe heard the bitterness in his voice. ‘Not by me,’ she said firmly. ‘Why trying to get laid?’

  The colour rose in his face. ‘Oh, nothing. One of the old wives’ tales, when I was young. The lads used to say that if you could get a girl out to the McBride house, she’d go wild for it and you’d get your way. Something to do with the spirit of Ailsa McBride. Her being a wanton one, I suppose. The village lads were forever trying to convince girls to go there with them at night.’ He gave a self-conscious half-laugh.

  ‘You and Dougie?’

  His expression changed. ‘Ah, we never had much success in that department. The girls were too smart.’

  As they descended the cliff road and rounded the final bend into the driveway of the house, the sight of a dark-blue pickup parked outside sent her heart plummeting to her stomach. Mick pulled the Land Rover up beside it; she saw the Golf’s hood propped open and Dougie Reid bending over it, poking about inside. He straightened up at the sound of the engine and grinned, showing his tobacco-stained teeth.

  ‘Morning, Michael.’ He wiped his hands on his carpenter trousers. ‘Should you no be at work instead of driving around with beautiful women? Does your wife know?’

  Mick did not return the smile. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Mrs Adams was having a bit of trouble with her starter motor yesterday, did she no tell you? So I brought my big tool round to see if I could sort her out. I’m a Good Samaritan like that.’ He waved a spanner with a wink at Zoe; she gave him a fleeting, sarcastic smile. ‘Were you hoping to do the same, Michael?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow as Mick lifted a toolbox from the back of the car.

  ‘I’m checking on the locks,’ he said, giving Dougie a look that seemed loaded with warning.

  ‘Dearie me – I hope you’ve no been getting peeping Toms or any of that?’ Dougie eyed her as he took a pouch of tobacco from his back pocket and rolled a cigarette dexterously between two fingers. He sounded as if the suggestion amused him. ‘You’re a long way from civilisation out here, mind. I can see why you’d be nervous.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Dougie. Get on and mend the car. Don’t you have a job to go to as well?’ Mick pushed past him to the front door with a noise of exasperation. Zoe felt a stab of pity for her landlord, combined with guilt; the lack of sleep and the anxiety about the house, her, the money, were all written plainly on his face. He looked frayed, his eyes pouchy.

  ‘Can’t leave a lady out here all on her own with a temperamental motor.’ Dougie removed the cigarette and spat a gob of brown phlegm on to the gravel. ‘Milk and two sugars if you’re putting the kettle on, hen.’

  Zoe glanced at Mick as she unlocked the front door; she found his surreptitious eye-roll reassuring.

  ‘I’ll start with all the windows and doors at the back,’ he said, wiping his boots on the mat. Then he stopped, nosing the air like a dog. ‘Christ, that smell seems to have got worse overnight. Don’t you think? Not sure how that could be, when I got rid of the gull.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another one I haven’t found yet,’ she said drily. ‘Do you want coffee?’

  ‘Only if you’re making some.’

  ‘Sure. It’s not like I have anything else to do.’ She picked up the vase of browning lilies from the hall table and set off towards the kitchen, shedding petals as she went. At this hour, washed with bright coastal light, the room appeared homely and welcoming, despite that persistent smell of decay. She move
d her laptop and sketchbook off the table and wondered if she should try to show Mick the McBride Wi-Fi network, but knew instinctively that it wouldn’t appear while he was there, and would only make her look doubly foolish. She filled the kettle and set it on the range, emptied the dead flowers into the bin and the brown water down the sink. As she glanced out of the window down the beach, she saw a seal basking on a rock and the sight lifted her spirits briefly. She measured out spoonfuls of coffee into the large cafetière, and when the kettle started up its whistle, she opened the fridge to look for milk, and let out a scream.

  Mick and Dougie hurtled down the corridor within minutes to find her standing in the light of the open door, trying to catch her breath. Staring out at them from its one frosted eye was the severed head of the gull.

  ‘Is that your signature dish?’ Dougie said, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Mick reached in and picked it up. ‘Was this here last night?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t look in the refrigerator after I found the body.’

  ‘It’s been in there a while.’ He weighed the frozen lump in his hand.

  ‘The Gullfather,’ Dougie said, in a bad Brando accent.

  ‘Will you fuck off away outside, Dougie? Seriously. You’re no helping.’

  ‘Sorry, pal. Here, let me.’ Dougie took an empty carrier bag from the back of the door and bundled the offending item inside. ‘My dog’ll think it’s Christmas,’ he said cheerfully, before heading back down the passageway to the front door.

  Zoe sat heavily at the table. The kettle shrieked unattended until Mick moved it off the heat.

  ‘You’re going to tell me your feral cats have learned to open refrigerators,’ she said, not looking at him.

  Mick pulled out a chair and slumped into it, pressing his fingers into his eyelids. ‘I don’t know what to say, Zoe. I can’t see that any of the locks have been tampered with, not the windows or the doors. I can’t explain it.’