While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  ‘How can you be so calm? This is an eleven-year-old kid, out there somewhere in this.’ She gestured to the window, opaque with running water. The sky outside had grown so dark it appeared to be almost dusk.

  ‘Because it’s not the first time,’ Edward said wearily. ‘He’ll have found somewhere warm and dry to hide away. You should try the bookshop – Charles has been known to harbour him, though I’ve asked him not to encourage it.’ He shook his head, as if there was nothing to be done about Charles. ‘Look, I’m sorry about last night. Some bastard slashed my tyre. I tried calling you but the line was completely dead. I didn’t want you to think I’d stood you up.’ He offered her a nervous smile.

  ‘I know. Robbie did it. He wanted to stop you coming out to the house.’

  ‘Little shit.’ Edward balled his hand into a fist. ‘I won’t get that money back then. Did he try to attack you?’

  ‘No, he was—’ She broke off, her attention distracted. The semicircular window that overlooked the playground offered a view right across the green to the kirkyard beyond. Though the window was blurry with rain, she was certain she could make out a figure in a hooded cloak standing motionless between the gravestones. Her throat tightened; she put a hand out to the wall to steady herself.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Edward touched her arm gently. ‘That cut on your head looks pretty nasty.’

  ‘You can see that, right?’ She clutched at his sleeve, her voice hoarse. ‘That – person, in the graveyard?’

  He squinted and peered through the glass, then gave her an odd, sideways look. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Really?’ She could hear her voice shaking. ‘Do you know who it is?’

  He rubbed the pane with his sleeve and looked again. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, that’s Charles. It looks like his big coat. Although I can’t see any sign of Horace …’

  ‘Damn.’ She let go of his arm. ‘Horace is in my car. I left him there out of the rain.’

  ‘Hold on, then – I’ll come with you. We can ask Charles if he’s seen anything of Robbie.’ He darted a glance over his shoulder at the classroom. ‘She’ll be all right with them for a few minutes. They’re more scared of her than they are of me. Wait there.’ He dashed back down the corridor and returned a couple of minutes later with a waterproof jacket.

  They ran across the playground through the downpour together, setting their shoulders against the wind. The figure in the kirkyard had not moved, as far as Zoe could see; it stood there, gaze fixed on the ground. Her gut tightened; she tried to swallow against the familiar sensation of nausea rising in her throat as last night’s memories of the reflection in the mirror jagged across her mind. In the road alongside the green, the drains had started to overflow; brown water gushed in torrents through the gutters. She stopped by her car and let Horace out of the back seat, keeping one eye on the hooded figure; the dog flew out like a greyhound from a trap and sped across the road with an energy she had never guessed him to possess. She tried to call him back, but her voice was lost in the wind; he was lucky that there was no traffic. At his frantic barks, the figure in the kirkyard turned; she felt a momentary twist of horror until she saw, as they approached, that it was indeed Charles, in exactly the kind of long waxed coat she had supposed the person out on the moors to be wearing, the first time she saw them. The old bookseller drew back his hood and crouched, smiling, to meet his berserk dog, who hurled himself at his master as if they had been separated for years. Her heart thudded at her ribs with relief, and once more she sensed Edward looking at her oddly.

  ‘What are you doing out here, Professor?’ he asked Charles, when they reached him, standing by a tall Celtic cross.

  ‘On my way to open up the shop.’ Charles eyed him carefully. ‘What’s brought you away from the children in this? And Zoe – my goodness! You look a little the worse for wear, if you don’t mind my saying so. Has Horace not been looking after you?’ He tousled the dog’s ears; Horace was leaping around him like a puppy.

  She glanced away, embarrassed. ‘He’s happy to get away. It’s been a bit of a morning.’

  ‘Robbie Logan’s run off again,’ Edward shouted, over the gale. ‘He was out at the McBride house last night, and this morning he’d vanished. You haven’t seen him, I suppose?’

  ‘Ah.’ Charles wiped the rain from his face. ‘I’m afraid not. I’m a little late opening today, as you see. I didn’t sleep too well.’ He glanced at Zoe, almost apologetically. ‘I suggest you and I get warm and dry inside, Zoe, and you can tell me what’s happened. Robbie might decide to turn up once I’m open. I’ll let you know, Edward, if he does.’

  Edward turned to Zoe. ‘I’ll see if I can get my tyre fixed at lunchtime. If not, I’m sure Charles will lend me his old jalopy – one way or another, I’ll come out and see you once school has finished, let you know what’s going on. Don’t worry – I’m sure we’ll have heard from Robbie by then.’

  He smiled, and laid a hand on her arm; she knew that Charles had noticed it. She thanked him, and turned to follow Charles towards the gate. As she did so, she glanced down at the granite plinth of the cross where he had stood and saw, with a quick shiver, that it was a memorial to Tamhas McBride. A thought struck her.

  ‘Where’s Ailsa?’ she called after him. He stopped abruptly, turning to look at her through the squalls of rain, and cupped his hand to his ear, though she was sure he had heard.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Ailsa – where’s her grave? Is she here?’

  He smiled as he waited for her to catch him up, and swept an arm around the kirkyard. ‘A suspected murderess, suicide and witch, in consecrated ground? What do you think?’

  She swiped water from her brows. ‘So where was she buried, then?’

  He hesitated – a beat too long, Zoe thought.

  ‘No one knows. Come on into the shop and dry off, and I’ll tell you the story.’

  ‘The villagers didn’t even want her buried on the island,’ Charles said, setting a steaming mug of coffee before her. She sat at the broad table in the bookshop’s back room with a selection of pastries from the bakery, a blanket tucked around her shoulders and her jacket on the back of a chair in front of the radiator, while he pottered about in the kitchen, feeding Horace. ‘Bonar wrote to William to say that the reverend had understandably refused burial in the kirk and it was thought best that unconsecrated ground be found somewhere on the mainland. Even then, you see, they worried about her grave becoming a focus of unhealthy fascination. Bonar offered to take responsibility for the discreet interment of the corpse, if William would meet the bill. He had to pay labourers from the mainland to carry the coffin, as none of the islanders would touch it.’

  He pulled up the chair opposite and helped himself to a croissant. Horace flung himself across Charles’s boots as if to prevent him leaving.

  ‘But there’s no record of where she was taken?’

  ‘We know the coffin was taken off the island by boat, accompanied by Bonar. After that, nothing official.’ Charles rubbed crumbs from his moustache with his thumbnail. ‘There was a paupers’ graveyard in the grounds of the lunatic asylum in Inverness. That’s the most likely, from hints Bonar gave William afterwards. It would have been fairly easy to have her buried there anonymously, if sufficient money changed hands, and William seems to have been glad to pay to make the business disappear.’

  ‘That’s so sad. An unmarked grave.’ She looked up at him. ‘And yet you don’t sound convinced.’

  ‘There’s one curious thing. A story grew up, recorded by a local magistrate in his diary, that the two men who were hired to bring her coffin over on the boat went around afterwards saying they thought it was too light to contain a body. Of course, they may have just enjoyed spinning a good yarn in the pub, but the rumour certainly took hold at the time.’

  ‘What do you think Bonar did with her, then?’

  He hesitated. ‘It’s always possible that he donated her corpse to his doctor friend, either fo
r payment or as a quid pro quo for signing the death certificate. A medical man at the time would have given a great deal for the opportunity to study a healthy corpse in such an unusual state of preservation after death, you can imagine. All completely illegal, of course, which is why Bonar would have had to concoct a story for William. But there’s no way of knowing for certain.’

  ‘Or maybe she never left the island.’

  Charles gave her an odd look. ‘Where would you get that idea?’

  ‘I’ve seen her.’ She glanced up to meet his eye, but met only with a quizzically raised brow. ‘Out on the moors, walking, in a kind of hooded cloak. And last night. I saw her in the cellar, before I fell.’ When he said nothing, she set her jaw and fixed him with an accusing stare. ‘So have you – I know you have. That’s why you won’t come to the house, isn’t it – because you see her too?’

  ‘You’re very tired, Zoe, and you’re understandably worried about Robbie—’

  ‘Don’t give me that! You’re the one who’s so sure about ghosts, or whatever you want to call them. Yesterday, when you first woke up, you said, “Is she still here?” You didn’t mean your cleaner, you meant Ailsa. Well, didn’t you?’ She heard her voice growing high and strained. Charles merely regarded her for a long time.

  ‘Did you see her face?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Not really.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘It was more a sense.’

  ‘But you’re sure it was Ailsa?’ He spoke very gently, as if to a distraught child.

  ‘Yes! I just knew.’

  ‘Had you – forgive me for asking – but had you had a drink?’

  She flushed. ‘Yesterday – a little. But the first two times, not a drop. I was cycling or driving across the moors.’

  ‘Could it not have been someone in a long hooded coat, like mine?’ He gestured to the kitchen, where his coat was hanging on the back of the door, rainwater puddling on the floor beneath it.

  ‘I thought of that, but they seemed to vanish into thin air.’ She had begun to feel foolish, like a patient who comes to the doctor convinced they have a life-threatening condition, only to be diagnosed with a common cold.

  ‘Hm. Any more of those unusual visions you mentioned?’ he asked, taking a gulp of his coffee. ‘The ones that match Ailsa’s?’

  This time she felt the colour suffuse her entire face and neck. ‘Last night, I dreamed—’ She broke off, covering her eyes with her hands, as if to hide herself from his searching gaze. ‘I dreamed I was her. And I saw the whole thing – the séance, or whatever it’s called, through her eyes.’

  ‘Well – she describes it in some detail in the journal. It’s not surprising if that’s lodged in your imagination—’

  ‘Tamhas was there, and then someone else appeared. Or something. And he—’ She shuddered and lowered her hands to the table.

  He leaned forward, intrigued. ‘You saw Tamhas in this dream?’ When she nodded, he frowned. ‘Wait there.’ He crossed the room to the glass-fronted cabinet where he kept the box with the photograph of Ailsa he had shown her the first time he told her the story. When he returned, he laid a sepia portrait on the table in front of her, and watched with a shrewd expression as she gasped.

  ‘That’s him!’ She stared up at Charles, her mouth hanging open, and tapped her finger on the heavy, bristled face that glared imperiously into the lens. ‘That was the man I saw. He was wearing that same patterned waistcoat, though not the jacket. He was in shirtsleeves.’

  ‘Interesting. I haven’t shown you this photograph before, have I?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No, I’m sure you haven’t.’

  ‘And you couldn’t have seen him in a book, perhaps?’

  ‘I haven’t read any books about him.’

  Charles nodded, and this time his manner reminded her of a doctor reluctantly making a diagnosis about which he had hoped to be proved wrong. She pressed her hands to her face again, steepling her fingers over her nose and mouth.

  ‘In these dreams – visions, whatever – I feel like I’m becoming her. Like she’s taking me over.’ She felt tears rising; all the exhaustion of the previous night rushed in on her as she fought them back. ‘Charles – why is this happening to me?’

  He gave her a long look, stern but compassionate. ‘I think you could answer that yourself, Zoe, if you put your mind to it.’

  She picked up her coffee and avoided his eye. Horace padded over amiably and laid his muzzle on her thigh, apparently having forgiven her for the night’s disruptions.

  ‘Hey, boy,’ she said weakly, fussing with his ears. ‘I bet you’re glad to be home, eh. Sorry I was such a lousy mom.’ As she said it, the words struck her with unexpected force; she found herself blinded by sudden tears and a choking sob that jammed in her throat as she tried to swallow it down.

  ‘You’re not a lousy mother, Zoe,’ Charles said, his expression deadly serious. ‘Far from it.’

  ‘Don’t say that. You don’t know anything about me.’ The sob fought its way to the surface; she made a hiccupping sound as it burst out. ‘Look at me. A little boy was in my care and I couldn’t keep him safe. I failed him. Don’t you understand that?’

  She glanced up at him through her tears and almost recoiled; his ice-blue eyes seemed to pierce her and lay her open, and in that instant she had the sense that he understood everything, and always had, from the beginning. He reached across the table and laid a cool, dry hand over hers.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said quietly.

  ‘It was completely my fault,’ she whispered.

  A long silence unfolded; they sat like that for a few minutes, listening to the slash of the rain against the windows and the roaring and sucking of the gale. Eventually, Zoe withdrew her hand and rummaged in her pocket for a tissue.

  ‘Robbie will be all right,’ Charles said firmly, gathering up the coffee mugs as he pushed his chair back.

  She frowned at him briefly, as if she had forgotten what they were talking about.

  ‘You said before that he was scared,’ she murmured. ‘You were right. He thinks he’s in danger. He told me last night they’ll get him sooner or later.’

  Charles turned at the kitchen door. ‘Did he really? That’s more than he’s ever said to me. He didn’t say who, I suppose?’

  ‘Whoever got Iain. Or whatever.’ A shiver ran through her. ‘He knows what Iain saw in the house that night, that’s for sure.’ She felt conscious then of the phone in her jacket. She ought to turn it over to Charles, she knew, but a stubbornness in her needed to see what had terrified Iain so badly that he had run up on to the cliff edge in the dark, before she showed it to anyone else. If whatever was in the house could be captured on film, it would be confirmation that she was not losing her mind.

  ‘He’ll confide in us eventually,’ Charles said, from the kitchen. She heard him pouring more coffee.

  ‘If he comes back.’

  ‘Oh, he will.’

  She stood, shrugging on her sodden jacket, suddenly irritated by his blithe optimism. ‘You say that like you know where he is.’

  ‘What I know is that Robbie Logan has a strong survival instinct,’ he said calmly. ‘He’s needed it, in that family. You mustn’t blame yourself – he obviously trusted you.’

  ‘Not enough to stop him running away,’ she said, grimly. The photograph of Tamhas stared at her from the table; she turned it face down before she left. She had seen enough of those eyes the previous night.

  On her way back to the car she called in at the hardware store and scoured the rack of phone chargers, but the model she wanted was not on display. When she asked the stout, grey-haired man behind the counter for the one she needed, he narrowed his eyes and she feared he could read her thoughts, or see the outline of Iain’s phone in her pocket.

  ‘Hold on – I’ll see if we’ve any left out the back,’ he said, tucking a pencil behind his ear. ‘Not much call for them these days, see – naebody’s got those phones now.’

  B
ut he shuffled back a few minutes later with a packet in his hand.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ he said, sliding it across the counter as she scrabbled in her purse for the right money. ‘I thought you Americans were all up to date with the latest technology,’ he added, with a grin.

  ‘Not me, I’m afraid.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’m old-school. I’m not even properly American,’ she added, growing flustered as she riffled through the unfamiliar notes, ‘so maybe that explains it. My grandmother was Scottish. From round here. Not this island, I mean, but this area.’ She was talking too much, she knew, because she could feel him watching her closely and it was making her nervous.

  ‘You’re practically a local, then. Here—’ He leaned over and pointed out the correct bill. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

  ‘That storm’s getting worse,’ he remarked, nodding to the door, as she tucked her change away. ‘Must be bleak out there at the McBride house, with this wind.’

  ‘Oh, it’s quite cosy once you’re inside,’ she said brightly, keen to get away as fast as possible and avoid any questions about the house. It was only as she zipped up her purse that she realised there was money missing. She paused in the doorway to recount. She could not be entirely sure how much had gone – not a huge sum, but enough to make a difference; thirty or forty pounds, perhaps. Her stomach somersaulted; Robbie must have taken it from her bag before he slipped out that morning. But whether the theft suggested anything about his intentions, she had no idea.

  20

  It was nearly midday by the time she returned to the house and shut herself in against the weather. The rooms looked flat and ordinary in the overcast daylight, all the skewed, dancing shadows of the previous night vanished. She went straight to the kitchen and tore the plastic cover off the new charger, cutting her finger on the jagged edges in her haste, and plugged the phone into a socket above one of the counters so that she could keep an eye on its progress. For a while she stood over it, impatiently expecting to see the battery light appear, but the phone must have been so damp, or else had not been charged for so long, that there was no immediate sign of life. Eventually she forced herself to give it time, and made her reluctant way upstairs to strip off her soaking clothes in the bathroom.